4. Xanadu, one of the greatest hotels that was never built.
During the Yuan Dynasty in China, the emperor had a summer palace called Xanadu. Apparently, it’s just such a fun name to say, that it was borrowed for the rest of time. In the 1970s, there were plans to create a hotel and casino by the same name, except that it was designed to look almost like it belonged in the middle of a South American rainforest. It was planned to have a tropical theme. It was canceled due to a conflict in building on top of existing sewer lines.
The concept drawings of Xanadu looked different than any other Las Vegas hotel at that time. Unfortunately, it became the most copied design, and in later years, architects everywhere were borrowing from the original design to make new casinos.
In the 1980s, the song “Xanadu” by Olivia Newton John was at the top of the charts. “A place where nobody dared to go. The love that we came to know. They called it Xanadu.”
The movie Xanadu premiered in 1980, starring Olivia Newton John. In the film, there is a nightclub called Xanadu. Acrobats were walking on tightropes, and talented dancers were performing on stages throughout the club. There were also people on roller skates jumping over one another. Basically, the movie made this out to be the greatest nightclub ever. Unfortunately for the movie, it flopped in the box office. Even though the plot of the film was terrible, the song by Olivia Newton John was at the top of the charts that year.
Arguably, a Xanadu hotel based on the nightclub in the movie may have actually done really well in the 1980s, if they installed a roller disco with neon lights near a separate dance floor. However, since the original plans had already flopped, it would never come to pass. Party-goers in Las Vegas had to settle to dancing to the song in other nightclubs.