Before he lost his Nevada gaming license in 1963, Frank Sinatra owned the Cal Neva Resort & Casino, which takes its name from being built across the Nevada/California state line. (Which means that all of the casino has to be on the Nevada side, private-sector casinos being illegal in California. A white stripe on the casino floor denotes the border.) Sinatra, who bought the lodge in 1960, discreetly moved his Mob associates/celebrity friends around the property via tunnels built during Prohibition and had a helipad installed.
The original Cal Neva (more correctly the "Calneva" back then) was built in 1926, burned down in 1937, and rebuilt a month later. (Ironic when you consider the multi-year struggle currently being experienced to rehabilitate the property.) Actress Clara Bow made its name as a hangout for the glitterati when she made headlines by canceling $13,000 in markers. She claimed that she thought the $100 blackjack chips that she played were worth only 50 cents. Subsequent celebrity visitors include Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, with the latter alleged to have used the Cal Neva as a favorite spot to tryst with lovers. It was the infamous scene of Marilyn Monroe's last weekend alive.
But by 2009 the by then 81-year-old resort, spa, and casino -- which had since passed through multiple different hands, including those of Kirk Kerkorian -- had fallen on hard times and that February the property went into receivership, having defaulted on a $25 million loan. In part to blame was competition from the rise of tribal casinos in California, exacerbated and self-perpetuated by a lack of maintenance. The original plan was to stick to business as usual while its creditors looked for a buyer, but when a scheduled auction failed to attract a single bidder, and with casinos closing or downsizing all around it, within a year the writing was on the wall and in March 2010 the casino component was closed.
The restaurant, showroom, and other amenities soldiered on and there was repeated talk of reinstating the gaming under an outside operator, with optimistic talk of bartop video poker and slots in the lobby by February 2011. All of this failed to materialize and in the spring of 2013 it was sold again, this time to Napa-based development company Criswell-Radovan, LLC, which that September announced that the whole resort was closing.
However, far from being the end of the road for the storied property, its shuttering was scheduled to be a relatively brief affair while it underwent a total remodel, Phase One of which was to include the demolition of 191 of the hotel’s 219 rooms, followed by major upgrades for the showroom and casino, which would begin dealing table games again. The new owners talked of creating a four-star property that would be open for business by December 12, 2014, in time for the 99th anniversary of Frank Sinatra's birth. When that deadline was missed, a new opening date was announced for summer 2015. Well, that was almost a week ago but a message on the official website still reads: "Closed for renovation."
Now that we've got you caught up on the back story, we'll be back tomorrow to fill in the rest of the story, to date. Stay tuned!
