At the top of the Palms' Fantasy Tower, the art of nightlife has been taken to a bold, new level – more than 50 stories above the streets of Las Vegas.
N9NE Group – already an innovator of Vegas nightlife and dining with its other Palms venues, N9NE Steakhouse, Rain nightclub and ghostbar – has topped even itself with the opening of Moon Nightclub and Playboy Club.
The two venues are part of a triple-threat assault on all five senses that begins with the Italian delights of Nove Italiano restaurant on the 51st floor of the Fantasy Tower. But dinner there is a mere prelude to the delights waiting on the two stories above.
Directly above Nove Italiano is the uniquely Vegas location of the Playboy Club.
Playboy Club
Playboy. The word has conjured up thoughts of beautiful women, swanky bachelor pads and swinging singles for 54 years. Now, on the tail of a 20-year Playboy Club drought, that iconic lifestyle once again leaps off the pages of the famous magazine and comes to life in the Playboy Club at the Palms Las Vegas.
"The bunny is back," said Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who opened the original Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960. During the '60s and '70s, dozens of clubs had cropped up all over the world from New York to London and Manila. Top comedy and musical acts performed at and frequented the clubs, which were open to members who held an exclusive key.
Playboy closed its last club in the United States in Lansing, Mich., in 1988, due to the increasing conservative world atmosphere.
"The truth of the matter for Playboy in general, certainly in terms of the bunnies, there was a period in the 1980s and early '90s when the brand was not hot," said Hefner, 81. "I think we went through kind of a politically correct period in America and elsewhere and they were not the best days for Playboy."
Then over the last half dozen years, Hefner said a huge fascination with retro emerged, from James Bond and The Beatles to the bunnies.
"The brand has become hotter on a global level, hotter than ever before," he said. "So we were looking for a place to re-ignite the whole Playboy Club-Casino concept and Las Vegas seemed like the most logical place."
Playboy Enterprises, Inc., talked to a lot of different operators in Las Vegas, but Hefner said the partner that made the most sense was the Maloof family, owners of the Palms.
"We made a deal to move into the Palms and I think it was the right choice," he said. "They are very successful at attracting a young, hip audience, from celebrities to high rollers."
Hefner added that Playboy Enterprises plans to open Playboy Club-Casinos elsewhere in the world, including London and Macau.
"It is the relationship, however, with the Maloofs and the Palms that is really the beginning of it all," he said.
Unlike the original clubs, the Playboy Club at the Palms does not require a membership. Anyone is welcome and the club's sophisticated ambience appeals to both men and women alike. While this club doesn't feature live performances, it does offer an exciting blend of hip nightlife and gaming.
Located on the 52nd floor of the Palms' Fantasy Tower, the club features floor-to-ceiling windows, offering stunning views of the Las Vegas Strip and the valley. The decor incorporates rich, dark colors, plush leather sofas and Baccarat crystal chandeliers, which all create a vintage Vegas vibe.
An exclusive VIP area features its own bar, a cozy fireplace and even some retro Playboy brand pinball machines.
The trademark Playboy Bunny logo is prominently displayed throughout the club – from the carpeting and the buttons on the sofas to a giant neon bunny head emblazoned on the side of the building.
For those who are fans of the magazine and its photographs, there is Playboy centerfold wallpaper and 60 plasma screens displaying visual images from the archives of the magazine.
While Hefner had input in the design of the Playboy Club, he said most of the credit goes to the Maloofs and the Las Vegas-based entertainment company that helped open the club, N9NE Group. Michael Morton, a principal of N9NE group, is the son of Chicago restaurateur Arnie Morton, one of Hefner's partners in the launch of the original Playboy Club.
"So our roots run all the way back to the early days," Hefner said.
Besides being a great place to grab a cocktail and enjoy the view, the Playboy Club also offers gaming in the form of blackjack and roulette tables. These aren't your ordinary blackjack tables. The dealers are all beautiful Playboy bunnies, clad in the legendary bunny costume complete with cuffs, collars and cottontails.
Cocktail waitresses also wear reinvented bunny costumes recently created by edgy designer Roberto Cavalli. The new costumes feature designs that include leopard prints and rhinestones - a fitting Vegas tribute.
The opening of the club in October 2006 brought back many memories for Hefner.
"I felt a tremendous amount of nostalgia," said Hefner, whose daughter Christie, chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises, also attended. "It was a very emotional weekend for me."
-- Review by Aleza Freeman and Kristine McKenzie
Moon
Spouses, families, coworkers, teachers – scores of people the world over know the struggle of competing with Playboy for somebody's attention. It's, to put it mildly, frustrating.
Well, relationships will go a little smoother now because Sin City, of all places, has solved this maddening dilemma – want to grab somebody's attention away from a brand built on attractive, scantily-clad women? Be an awesome nightclub.
While this may not be a perfect fit for every situation, it works pretty well in Vegas and that's where it counts most.
Located a few floors up from the Playboy Club, Moon Nightclub pulls in a regular packed house, even with Hef and his crew just an escalator trip away.
This is due, in no small part, to the fact that Moon literally feels a little bit out of this world. It's like George Bailey made good on that promise with the lasso and pulled it down square into the Palms.
Maybe that sounds like an exaggeration, but it's pretty evident by Moon's place in the Las Vegas Nightclub Hall of Fame (which doesn't actually exist – yet) that something has to be setting Moon apart.
The most apparent selling point is Moon's entire look.
There's definitely a little bit of an outer space vibe to the furniture and wall decoration, but it's really pushed over the top with things like lasers and video screens.
The cocktail waitresses and servers even get in on the action with uniforms straight out of the mind of a 12-year-boy with simultaneous astronaut and girlfriend fantasies.
If a few items from the Sexy Jetsons living room collection don't seal it for you, consider this – Moon has a retractable roof like you'd see on a planetarium. There aren't many things on Earth as outer-spaced-inclined as planetariums.
Plus, in anticipation of people immediately wanting to be outside after witnessing a roof retract to reveal the spectacle of Las Vegas, Moon comes equipped with a sizable patio.
There are some intense-looking VIP areas around the club that look equally futuristic, each with a few unique touches – a private patio here, a lit-up dance floor there.
To take advantage of a handy pun – Moon is pretty out of this world. And hey, if it's not your scene, there's still that sexy bunny club nearby. We hear it's pretty interesting in there, too.
– Review by Jamie Helmick
Questions with Hugh Hefner
So where does the world's most famous bachelor choose to celebrate his birthday? In Vegas, baby! Hugh Hefner's girlfriends, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, stars of the hit E! reality television series, "The Girls Next Door," threw him the ultimate 81st and 82nd birthday bashes at Palms Las Vegas.
The Palms is somewhat of a second home for Hef. A partnership between the Palms and Playboy Enterprises led to last year's opening of the first Playboy Club in 20 years, as well as the 9,000 square foot Hugh Hefner Sky Villa, atop The Palms Fantasy Tower.
While Hef admits that Playboy Enterprises was a victim of the politically correct American climate during the '80s and early '90s, now, he declares, "The bunny is back."
When you started out in Chicago in the '50s, did you ever envision that the Playboy logo would be emblazoned on a Las Vegas hotel and that the bunnies would be dealing cards and serving drinks to Las Vegas visitors?
Well nothing that came to pass is something that I could have imagined. When I started the magazine, I didn't put a date on the first issue, because I wasn't sure there would be a second -- I didn't have any money. So what came to pass thereafter, that it so influenced society, that it became a brand known globally, that it turned into all of these different kinds of things from playboy clubs to television shows, to casinos -- I could not have imagined. I was a kid who dreamt impossible dreams, but I could not have imagined what lay ahead for me.
Describe your perfect night in Las Vegas.
A night spent with my three girlfriends, taking in a good show and enjoying the club-casino environment at The Palms, then an evening alone with the girls in the pool and the round bed (in the Hugh Hefner Sky Villa).
How has Las Vegas changed since your first trip here?
Vegas was a very different town back then. A lot of the members of the Rat Pack were personal friends of mine. I saw them on more than one occasion. I remember I took a trip to San Francisco to see Lenny Bruce who I had just heard about, and that would actually be the late 1950s. I saw Lenny Bruce and then went up to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. So that would have been the first trip and that would be probably around '57, '58. Now its become the entertainment capital of the world. We all know the phenomenal and unique history of the city, and its metamorphosis. It's a miracle.
Would you ever consider re-locating the Playboy Mansion to Las Vegas?
No, but I think it will be, to some extent, a second home. We'll be spending more time there. I can't imagine moving from the Playboy Mansion.
The original Playboy Mansion in Chicago was turned into condominiums. Do you think many tenants move there specifically because of its history?
I suspect so. They offered us the opportunity to purchase one of the condos about a week ago for over $2 million. The amazing thing is that Playboy Mansion West, which I bought out here in Los Angeles in 1971, I bought for just over $1 million. Now it's worth, who knows, $40, $50, $60 million.
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to a party at the Playboy Club in Las Vegas, who would you invite?
Marilyn Monroe probably first and foremost, probably Frank (Sinatra), and Elvis, and Sammy Davis who was a very good friend, and probably some of the people I grew up admiring when I was a kid: Cary Grant, (Humphrey) Bogart, the people who had an impact on me when I was growing up.
Beyond the Palms resort, what do you love about Las Vegas?
Well, the fact that it never sleeps. It's party central. I was raised in a very typical, Midwestern, Methodist home with a lot of repression, and I think that for me that was part of reason, consciously and unconsciously, for launching Playboy. Playboy was devoted to a celebration of life and I think that the party theme, the very notion of a good party, has always been my response to Puritan repression. It was not a coincidence that when I did my very first television show, "Playboy's Penthouse," in the 1960s in Chicago, the theme for it was a party. After those shows, we would go to the original Playboy Mansion and have a late night party. I think that what makes Vegas unique is the fact that the party never ends.
Well, except when you have to work.
(Laughing) Yes, but in my case my work and play are kind of connected.
You have the ideal life.
That's true.
So, if Vegas was a woman, would she be a blonde, redhead, brunette or raven-haired beauty?
At various times she would probably be any one of the above. I think there are moments when she is any of the three or four: A blonde in the afternoon by the pool and a raven-haired exotic beauty later in the evening.
What's the secret to treating a lady right when you are in Las Vegas?
In any relationship it has to do with paying attention to what's going on. Don't be self involved. I don't think that it's a good line that wins the heart of a woman. I think it is listening, paying attention to what's going on and a good sense of humor helps.
And finally, tuxedo or smoking jacket?
Smoking jacket.
Smoking jacket, you didn't even have to think about that ...
No (laughing).
