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Question of the Day - 14 October 2022

Q:

Lately, I've been seeing ads for a "Hotel Apache" at Binion's in downtown Las Vegas. What is that? A hotel within a hotel? And if so, what's the point of it in a casino that's so old?

A:

The Hotel Apache itself, independent of Binion's, opened in 1932. It was built by P.O. Silvagni, an Italian immigrant who, though he spoke little English, was a builder in Utah, held one of the concrete contracts for Hoover Dam, and bought the vacant lot at 128 Fremont Street for $30,000, envisioning that the dam workers needed a place to blow off steam on Saturday nights. It was the first Las Vegas hotel to have air-conditioning in the lobby, protected by a newfangled "air curtain" at the entrance. It was also the first with an electric elevator and a carpeted casino.

The building was eventually leased by Benny Binion, who ran the original 81 rooms above the Eldorado Casino, renamed the Horseshoe, for friends and players.

Binion’s was purchased by TLC Casino Enterprises, which also owns the Four Queens, in 2004 and the rooms were closed in 2008 due to the economic downturn.

Eighty of the original 81 rooms reopened on July 29, 2019.

Code restrictions prevented moving walls to increase the size of the rooms, so they were refurbished and decorated to look like they did in the ’30s: hardwood floors, stained-glass windows, historic photos, antique furnishings, including old phones and radios, and queen beds only, though with the mod cons, such as flat-screen TVs and upgraded bathrooms.   

Since reopening the Apache, Binion's has been touting it as downtown's "Historic Haunted Hotel," where unexplained and unexplainable phenomena — spirits apparently doing odd stuff like slamming doors, shuffling papers, turning on TVs, showing up in photos, making muffled thumps, even having contact with staff members, especially in the old count room on the second floor and room 400 — take place on a reportedly regular basis; the hotel rooms were featured on the Travel Channel show “Ghost Adventures” in March 2019.

Rooms at the boutique hotel-within-a-hotel start at $48 weekdays (not including "tax recovery charges and service fees" of $22.93 and $5 per night for parking for $75.87 total) up to $121 weekends (plus $48.71 and $5 for $174.65.

And if you want to stay at Binion's/Apache, we have a coupon for 15% off the prevailing room rate there in our Member Rewards Book.  

 

 

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Comments

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  • Hoppy Oct-14-2022
    Applause, at 4 a.m.
    From my room, on N. Casino Center Blvd., at what was then Binion's Horseshoe, I was awoken by a boom, followed by applause. This happened at 4 - in the morning! Before breakfast, I went downstairs and saw a sizeable 'dent' in the Freemont. The night before, I had gotten to see Dennis Farina and the cast of 'Crime Story' while they were being filmed infront of 'the Shoe'. A few months ago, this happened again. But, when I went downstairs ......Boo!

  • Sandra Ritter Oct-14-2022
    Do tell
    Why did only 80 of the original 81 reopened in 2019?  Was the one room not reopened TOO haunted, did someone get killed in it, was it converted to a linen closet, is it the owner's personal suite? The weirdest things interest me.

  • [email protected] Oct-14-2022
    I'm with Sandra
    I had the exact same question - what's with the one room they didn't re-open.  Inquiring minds want to know!

  • Hoppy Oct-14-2022
    Applause, part Deux
    It should help if I mention the 'dent' was put on the Freemont during the filming of a car chase.

  • Lanita Aldridge Oct-14-2022
    Jazzigrams
    A few months ago, I stayed at the Hotel Apache in a room directly across from Room 400. Several times I heard the sound of pounding. I asked the lady at the Front Desk if there was construction going on above me. She looked at me a little strangely and said there is no floor above you. I looked out windows and from the street but could not see evidence of any construction happening that might have made the noise.