The Landmark Hotel & Casino at the corner of Paradise Road and Convention Center Drive was a major gamble undertaken by a Kansas City contractor and his financiers. Its construction began in 1961 but funding was cut off in December of 1962.
It sat unfinished for years, towering over the nearby Convention Center and its rotunda. A Teamsters Union Pension Fund loan in 1966 permitted construction to resume, but the resort remained unfinished until it was acquired by Howard Hughes in 1969.
Hughes, residing in isolation on the top floor of the Desert Inn’s high-rise, turned all his attention to remodeling the Landmark and opening it in competition with his rival Kirk Kerkorian’s new International Hotel & Casino on the other side of Paradise Road.
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- 1961-62, tower under construction
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- 1962, unfinished “capsule” atop tower
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- Circa 1967, still unfinished, with International under-construction to left
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- 1967, still unopened, as seen from Paradise Road
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- 1970s
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- View of award-winning pool from tower.
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- View of tower from pool
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- Landmark at night
The unfinished resort plays a major role in the prequel to “Joey’s Place,” which is tentatively entitled, “Landmark Kill.”