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Steve Wynn: Here’s how 2020 began for me. Enter site From Steve Wynn So, check it out. Here's how 2020 began for me. Dallas and his brother Travis were joined at various points in the evening by their father, uncle and mom, all of whom had also made records and toured for well over a half century. Wynn Family Profile. Wynn family comes from a humble background. Steve made the last name famous. Wynn Parents – Michael Weinberg. He was born Stephen Alan Weinberg in Connecticut’s New Haven on 27 January 1942. Not much is known about his mother. His father’s name was MichaelWeinberg, who changed the surname to Wynn. He ran a bingo parlor.

From Steve Wynn

So, check it out. Here's how 2020 began for me.

I was invited by Scott McCaughey to play guitar with the Minus 5 as part of the 20th annual New Year's Eve show put on by The Sadies at the Horseshoe Lounge in Toronto. Linda was on drums and Sadies' guitarist Dallas Good sat in on bass with us for the evening. It was a really fun night and great to be part of such a wonderful and cherished tradition up north of the border. Dallas and his brother Travis were joined at various points in the evening by their father, uncle and mom, all of whom had also made records and toured for well over a half century.

We finished our set, a mixed bag of songs from the back pages of the Minus 5, Baseball Project, Dream Syndicate and my own solo albums as well and then we settled in to enjoy the Sadies set. It was the culmination of a wonderful, chilly few final days of 2019 spent in that beautiful and vibrant city. The countdown to midnight began, champagne glasses in hand and at the stroke of midnight, we all sipped, hugged, kissed, raised toasts and then Dallas said this from the stage:

'I don't know. I've got a feeling that 2020 is going to be the best year ever.'

Oh well. You can't get 'em all right.

I had a lot of plans this year. Just like all of you did. There was a new Dream Syndicate album, an 11-CD solo box set, a collaboration with Psychic Temple and also a solo acoustic record I had made in Austin a month earlier. And four records set to be released in 2020 also meant that there would be a lot of touring ahead, taking the new music from town to town just as I have done since I was 22.

The Dream Syndicate was particularly excited about playing South by Southwest in March for the first time and we had a slate of seven really great shows ahead of us in Austin. After that, Linda and I were scheduled to travel up to the Arctic Circle for the Sun Station Vadso festival , playing our own songs and also backing up one of our heroes, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones, joined by our friend (and former Pogue) Cait O' Riordan on bass. I was going to follow that with my first-ever solo acoustic house concert tour of the US, a nice nomadic adventure I had been looking forward to for some time. Some Dream Syndicate shows and a few solo tours along with a Baseball Project recording session booked for August at Mitch Easter's studio in North Carolina were set for later in the year

Plans. As the great philosopher Mike Tyson once said, 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.'

You all know the rest. We all know the rest.

I was lucky to have the four records in the can, giving me new music to promote and talk about and share with all of you. I was proud of each of those records and did all I could do to spread the word without the advantage of touring and promo jaunts.

Linda and I also learned the ropes about streaming concerts and did around 20 shows from our living room and rehearsal room down the road here in Queens. It was a whole new way of doing gigs from the tech learning curve to the weird sensation of singing into an iPad and knowing (hoping) there were people around the world watching in real time. A new way to connect and keep up the chops and it went from being terrifying and confusing to actually being a lot of fun in its own very unique way.

And now it's 2021. I'm starting the year off with 'Strummer and Jones,' a new single on Bandcamp that I recorded with Linda in Port Antonio, Jamaica back in 2013. It's a whimsical ditty about my record collection in the formative year or two before the Dream Syndicate. I've wanted to put it out for years and Bandcamp makes it all so easy and immediate. I'll be putting more archival releases up there in the coming months.

Also, Linda and I will be doing a series of gigs in January and February called The Impossible Tour. Two shows every Sunday that will take place 'in' some of our favorite venues around the globe. Okay, in reality we'll be at The Chimp Factory (aka our rehearsal room) but we have a very good imagination and we hope you do as well. The shows will be up on Stage It, the good people who hosted my last two streaming gigs in recent months.

And then? Who knows! I guess the answer would be 'nobody knows' but I do hope to get back out on the road before the year is over with all or any of the various projects that went into mothballs in 2020.

Most of all, I hope you all are healthy, doing whatever it takes to stay happy, entertained, creatively engaged and overall, just hanging in there. The predictions of the wonderful Dallas Good aside, 2020 was probably not the best year of all time. Let's hope he was just off by one year.

See you down the road, be it real or virtual. Happy New Improved 2021, everybody.

Steve Wynn
Jackson Heights
December, 2020

When you look back at the history of gambling, there are truly only a handful of names that can be associated with the immense growth and popularity of the industry.

When it comes to Las Vegas casinos, and in particular the lavish properties on the Las Vegas Strip, one name comes immediately to mind: Steve Wynn.

Wynn is responsible for some of the most iconic brands on the Strip today, and his rise to prominence is a great American story.

The Early Years

Stephen Alan Weinberg was born in New Haven, Connecticut on January 27^th, 1942. His father, Michael, decided shortly after Steve was born to change the family name to Wynn. This was to try to avoid some of the anti-Semitic trouble that was being caused in the U.S. around that time.

Michael Wynn ran a group of bingo parlors across the eastern U.S. as his career, so Steve had gaming in his blood from an early age. The business afforded Steve some of the finer things when he was growing up; the most important being a private school education.

Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the bingo business wasn’t being run as profitably as it could be, and when Wynn’s father passed away, it was discovered that there were debts from the business totaling $350,000.

Steve was studying English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania when his father died.

He managed to turn that business around, paying off all the debts and making the halls profitable once again.

Now fully entrenched in the family business, Wynn turned his attention from the bingo parlors to larger possibilities. He parlayed some of the profits from the bingo parlors into buying a piece of the Frontier Casino, and in 1967 he and his family relocated to Las Vegas.

Vegas back in those days was nothing like you see today; the Fremont Street casinos were the only ones at the time. However, the city was alive with entertainment, and Wynn wanted to capitalize on it as much as possible.

On top of making the right financial connections in Vegas upon his arrival, Wynn also opened a wine and liquor importing business, which became wildly successful.

In fact, it was so successful, that Wynn started to buy property in the desert; this land would soon become Las Vegas Boulevard.

In 1971, Wynn managed to flip one piece of land to the folks who would build Caesar’s Palace and turned those profits into a controlling stake in the Golden Nugget. He felt the iconic casino needed a refresh, so he poured significant investment into refurbishing the entire property, including building the first hotel rooms at the casino.

After building another Golden Nugget in Atlantic City and purchasing and rebranding a casino in Laughlin, it was time for Steve to put his vision for his own lavish property together. This meant a move on to the Strip, which was a daunting task given that in the early 1980s, the economy had been suffering and Las Vegas seemed to have lost its luster.

Wynn didn’t buy into the hype, vowing to make the city a tourist destination for not just Americans but international travelers. Having sold the Atlantic City Golden Nugget for $440 million in 1987, Wynn took those proceeds and other funding methods to break ground on The Mirage.

Despite challenges and issues, he managed to have the property completed in an unheard of two years, and in November of 1989, the casino resort opened its doors. The centerpiece of the Mirage was on the outside of the building; a massive, working “volcano” that would light up and erupt on a regular basis.

The building boom took off almost instantly, and Wynn was right back in the mix, working on his next puzzle piece.

The vision for his next project was simple; a more family-oriented resort, featuring a pirate theme. The end result of this vision was Treasure Island, complete with another outdoor entertainment platform for passersby to stop and watch. Treasure Island was a huge success and combined with the Mirage made Wynn and Mirage Resorts very profitable.

The plans for the Bellagio revealed a decadent casino/resort, featuring the greatest attention to detail in the rooms and casino, a state of the art entertainment facility ready to house Cirque Du Soleil, and a full spa and shopping experience.

When it was completed in 1988 (as the most expensive hotel built in the world), Wynn’s outdoor spectacle rivaled the interior of the facility: a spectacular lake with a programmable fountain in the middle, which would put on a water display every 15 minutes set to music.

You have for sure seen this fountain even if you haven’t been to Vegas; the water show has been featured in dozens of movies and TV shows.

He then turned his attention to a spot outside of the Nevada lights; he next built the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Mississippi, which upon completion was the largest resort in the U.S. outside of Vegas.

Steve Wynn Today

To deal with archaic gambling laws, the casino originally was housed on barges that were stationary on the property (gambling had to take place on the water in those days).

During this whole rise to fame, the one thing that was failing Steve Wynn was a critical one: his eyesight.

Steve Wynn Death Valley Rain

However, he wasn’t done with his “vision” of casino resorts. In 2000, Mirage Resorts was sold to MGM for $6.6 Billion.

Just before that deal was completed, Wynn purchased the old Desert Inn for $270 million, and when he was free and clear from Mirage Resorts, he announced yet another ridiculously expensive project.

This one would allow him to leave his mark on the Strip, quite literally; the Wynn Resort and Casino would open on April 28, 2005, at a staggering cost of $2.6 billion.

The hotel features The Tower Suites, run almost as a separate entity to the regular hotel rooms. It also featured a golf course (the only one on the Strip), and the opulent displays of art were everywhere you turned.

Wynn looked to replicate the model in the Asian gaming state of Macau, and in 2008 the Wynn Macau was opened. Simultaneously, he decided to put a second tower up at his Las Vegas resort, and soon after the Encore was opened, he went right back to Macau to build the same tower attached to his property there.

Even as he advances in age, Wynn continues to apply for and receive permits to build casino resorts. The latest include plans to build the Wynn Palace on the mainland in China, as well the Wynn Everett, which will be housed just outside downtown Boston.

Steve Wynn Delorean

It seems that everything goes Wynn’s way, even when it goes sideways. An avid art collector, Wynn was set to sell one of his prized possessions, Picasso’s La Reve, for $139 million to Stephen Cohen.

Unfortunately, his eyesight got the better of him and one day he put his elbow right through the painting. This voided the sale, and Wynn spent almost $100,000 restoring the painting. Upon restoration, the painting was now valued at $85 million.

Andrea Hissom

Wynn sued the insurance company for the sum of $54 million, and that case was finally settled out of court. The final selling price of the painting in 2013 (to the same buyer)? $155 million.

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Steve Wynn Now

This small-time bingo operator parlayed good business ethics and excellent networking into becoming one of the most iconic figures in the history of gambling.