Martin Stern, Jr.

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Las Vegas, transformed by high-rises.

Martin Stern, Jr. (April 9, 1917-July 28, 2001) was an American architect best known for his many large scale designs and structures in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Stern is credited in Las Vegas with originating the concept of the structurally integrated casino resort complex [1]. Two pivotal projects with Kirk Kerkorian, the International Hotel (1969) (now the Las Vegas Hilton) and the first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (1973), set the pace for the dramatic transformation [2] of Las Vegas from a low-rise sprawl of motels, clubs and parking lots to the extravagant high-rise metropolis it is today.

The Daily Telegraph wrote of this first Stern/Kerkorian project, in its September 8, 2001 eulogy [3] to Stern: "The International, whose tri-form 30-floor tower contained 1,519 rooms and became the most imitated building on the Las Vegas strip ... provided the model for the Bellagio, Treasure Island, Mirage and Mandalay Bay, among other hotels." When it was completed, the International was the largest hotel in the world.

The first MGM Grand, in its turn the largest hotel in the world, burned in 1980, only seven years after it was completed, in what is considered the worst disaster in Nevada state history and which, as the Daily Telegraph observed, was devastating to Stern. The MGM Grand was nonetheless rebuilt in eight months, reopened, sold in 1985, and is now Bally's Las Vegas.

Construction magnate Del Webb was another major client with whom Stern worked on many projects, including twenty years of elaborate stages of expansion of the Sahara Hotel and Casino between 1963 and 1983. [4]

1 Partial listing of Commissions
2 University Collection
3 External links

[edit] Partial listing of Commissions

Nearly half of Martin Stern's projects were in Nevada, a quarter in California, the remainder in other states including Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Utah, and at least three other countries, including Australia, Japan, and Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia).

[edit] 1950s

1955 Encino Village, a subdivision of ~400 homes in Encino, Los Angeles, California [5]
1955 Holiday Hotel Reno; the birthplace, 14 years later, of the World Series of Poker [6]
1958-61 Mountain Shadows (later a Marriot resort), Scottsdale, Arizona
1959 Del Webb's Towne House, San Francisco. This was the location in 1969 of the 7th American Mensa AG (Annual Gathering), the first to be held in San Francisco [7]

[edit] 1960s

1960 Paradise Valley Country Club, Paradise Valley, Arizona
1963 Ship's Coffee Shop [8] in the fanciful mid-20th century space-age [9] architectural style known as Googie architecture
1963 Beverly Hills Library, the exterior of which was allegedly used for Brady Bunch stock shots (see also Beverly Hills Public Library 1929-2004: A Brief History [10] and a 1965 photograph of the exterior [11])
1963-83 Sahara Hotel, Las Vegas. The Beatles played the Sahara in August, 1964, during their first United States tour (small photo [12])
1964 Kaanapali Beach Hotel, Maui, Hawaii

1964 Del Webb's Ocean House (later the Mission Bay Hilton), San Diego, California; said to have appeared [13] in the 1967 Jerry Lewis film The Big Mouth
1966 Silver Slipper Hotel, known for its giant rotating rooftop silver slipper, Las Vegas; purchased in 1968 by Howard Hughes.
1969 King's Castle (later Tahoe Hyatt), Incline Village, Nevada

[edit] 1970s

1970 Kuilima Hotel, Oahu, Hawaii [14]
1971 Harold's Club Reno 1971
1971 Little America Hotels in Paradise Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Tucson, Arizona
1974 Las Vegas Hilton Benihana Village [15]
1975-79 Fremont Hotel (now part of Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel), Las Vegas [16]
1979 Rainbow Plaza Resort Hotel, Niagara Falls, New York [17]
1979 Ibusuki Hotel, Ibusuki, Kagoshima, Japan

[edit] 1980s

1982 Breakwater Island Resort Queensland, Australia
1982 Harrah's Trump Plaza on the Atlantic City, New Jersey Boardwalk
1982 Valley Bank, Spring Valley, Nevada
1985 Nova Gorica Hotel/Casino, Slovenia
1986 Darling Harbour Hotel, New South Wales, Australia
1987 Embassy Suites Hotel, South Lake Tahoe, California
1988 Normandie Club, Gardena, California

[edit] University Collection

The inventory [18] of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Lied Library Department of Special Collections lists over one hundred ten Martin Stern, Jr. projects between 1951 and 1989, of which twelve, including the near-legendary Xanadu [19] envisioned in 1975, were never built.