Las Vegas Weekly

September 3, 2008 · 11:29 AM

The desert’s newest playground: A winter wonderland made entirely from ice

By Robin Leach

Minus 5 Lounge

Photo: Brain Trust

By the end of the month the icy doors of the new Minus 5 ultra-lounge made entirely from ice will be open for us ink-stained wretches to take a peek. Meanwhile, as work progresses at Mandalay Place from construction zone to finished blue and white winter wonderland, TV cameras will be shooting the final days of progress for an unscripted program, "The Making Of ..." Nobody has ever tried to make a full lounge where everything in it is sub-freezing. And I mean everything: glasses, couches, bar, sculptures and stools are all crafted from ice! It's so cool at 23 degrees (minus 5 Celsius) you’ll have to wear parkas, mittens and boots to enter!

Craig Ling, founder of the New Zealand-based company that has six such lounges open in three countries, welcomes the challenge of his first lounge right in the hot desert: “Nobody has ever seen anything like this before,” he said. “Our focus is the art of ice. We have our own ice carvers who change the furniture and decorations every six weeks. This gives us the ability to tailor-make sculptures for any function or event- we can even carve an actual-sized replica of an automobile. Craig predicts a big business with “ice weddings” and he’ll provide "stained-ice" windows, ice-candelabras and romantic ice carvings in the ice chapel. It's recommended the bride wear a fur-trimmed white cape to keep warm long enough to say “I Do” without chattering!

Since we really don’t have ice in the Mojave, Minus 5 will import the harsh raw blocks from Canada and pure artisan water from New Zealand to turn into frozen glasses and not waste the Vegas water supplies. The Vegas-based Minus 5 will be the first of many in the United States with New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Hawaii already on the drawing board.

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