Las Vegas Weekly

December 15, 2009 · 12:04 PM

Hard Rock Hotel’s new HRH Tower with Vanity, Reliquary Spa

By Robin Leach

A suite in the Hard Rock Hotel's new HRH Tower. This is not the Provocateur Penthouse Suite.

Photo: Hard Rock Hotel

Designing a new hotel has to be a really tough challenge these days. Hasn’t everything already been done? Incredibly, the design team at the new Hard Rock Hotel tower HRH Tower opening on Dec. 28 managed to disprove my theory. There are stripper poles in the gym and suites to rent in the spa. Both are a first for Las Vegas resorts, and perhaps anywhere else in the world.

Those are just two of the super attractions that sent my eyes spinning in the all-suite HRH Tower at the $750 million addition and expansion of the Hard Rock. The 17-story Paradise Tower opened a month ago, so that’s 860 new guest rooms total.

And wait till you get to explore the ladies room in the luxurious, new 14,000-square-foot nightclub Vanity. It has a salon with a beautician to touch up the lips and polish the nails of the party princesses. I haven’t even talked about the $1-million-plus chandelier that covers the roof after “growing” up out of the floor in a cyclone-type vortex of changing colors throughout its 20,000 crystals.

The new tower features eight of those magnificent spa villas that open directly to the pool areas. Up top over the regular 359 suites with their cast iron bathtubs, wet bar and separate sitting and bed areas are seven penthouse suites on the 16th floor. All the rooms come with a Sound Matters Sound Bar with touch-panel music system and IPod dock with more than 2,000 songs and play lists for guests to choose. Two Sony LCD TVs and DVD players also are featured.

Randy Kwasniewski, president of Morgans Hotel Group that owns the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel, commented: “The creativity, innovation and overall thought that went into the Tower Suites, the entire property expansion and renovation is unlike anything I’ve seen around the world.”

Hard Rock Chief Marketing Officer Phil Shalala added: “It moves our brand into another level of decadence while maintaining the service our guests have come to expect. This tower is a major milestone in our expansion. Our goal was to stay true to the property’s innovative and trend-setting style while creating an edgy and decadent rock and roll experience not offered anywhere else in Las Vegas.”

In all, the Towers at HRH have carved out more than 30,000 square feet of new casino space and 60,000 square feet of meeting and convention space from the old Joint. People will be fighting for the Penthouse and Spa suites.

Here’s what floored me: The penthouse suites are named Infinity, Nirvana, Provocateur, Platinum, Ultra Lounge, Stones and Sex & Pistols. Some are sexily furnished in black crocodile leather with patent leather walls. The Nirvana Suite, with its Moroccan flair, leads to its own outside beach area with private plunge pool. The Provocateur Suite has a glass ceiling over the four-poster bed, which is equipped with a built-in interactive projection system that projects videos onto the bed itself and the wall behind it. Another suite was decorated in red lacquer with a Feng Shui touch. They are simply stunning!

But it’s the eight spa villa suites, at $5,000 per night, that really knocked me for six: Two of them are duplexes, to boot. The great room has a floated ceiling, which extends above the spa bed and leads to the outdoor patio with its own lounge seating, fire pit and plunge pool sanctuary. Each has an area where the in-suite spa services are tendered by staff from the Reliquary Spa. This is the height of luxury: your own spa in your own suite. A miracle massage and then just four steps to the master bed.

The centerpiece of the 25,000-square-foot Reliquary Spa is the Roman Bath for all guests to be seen, socialize and then retreat to the private cabana-type alcoves. There are 21 treatment rooms, a fitness center and that private studio for stripper pole dancing lessons.

The nightclub Vanity has its eye on you from the moment you arrive. One of the design features are the eyes in the walls everywhere you turn -- your eyes! The 14,000-square-foot nighterie is a second-floor nightspot atop a pair of escalators, so the two marble bars surround the 80-foot sunken dance floor with 50 VIP booths. There’s an onyx catwalk lined with lanterns, and I’m betting those poles will be used like strippers. But it’s the outdoor terrace they’ll be fighting for with its five cabanas and a Sky Bar to sit under the stars on spring and summer nights. Staff in unique rocker-style uniforms will serve you a free house punch in crystal bowls upon arrival and then offer champagne menus engraved on handheld antique mirrors.

Now here’s cause for a sex discrimination suit: Inside the lavish, luxurious ladies lounge are six vanity stations with staff to fix broken nails, polish them brighter, style hair and spruce up makeup. There’s a full-length, three-way mirror to check that the disco dress is on right. It’s another first -- I didn’t even bother going into the men’s room to see if we had anything remotely similar, but I seriously doubt it!

John Mayer will be at Vanity after his New Year’s Eve concert to help christen the playground, and ultimate party host and rap mogul royal P. Diddy will host the grand gala opening on Jan. 2.

“We took everything we learned from Body English and brought it to the next level,” said Cory McCormack, Hard Rock’s managing partner of the Nightlife Group. “Whatever the whim, Vanity caters to it.”

So now you’re wondering what happens to Body English? It will close with a final blowout on New Year’s Eve, and by April, it will be born again as the newest and best after-hours club in the city. Afterlife will be open from 2 to 10 a.m. or beyond! The customer with the biggest champagne bill on New Year’s Eve over the $15,000 reserve will be gifted with the vintage centerpiece Baccarat chandelier that originally cost Hard Rock $250,000. That’s one mighty impressive souvenir from one of the hottest clubs in town. Hang it in your living room, and you’ll always remember the outrageous and fun naughty nights you spent there before you switched to Vanity!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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