Every Picture Tells a Story: Imperial Palace — Las Vegas (1997)

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
IMPERIAL PALACE CASINO / THE AUTO COLLECTION — LAS VEGAS (1997)

The Imperial Palace has an fascinating, albeit scandalous past. A construction mogul named Ralph Engelstad bought the property in 1971 which included a small hotel called the Flamingo Capri. He invested his own money, expanded the hotel to 19 stories, added a casino, opened up an antique car museum, and ignited multiple firestorms later in his life when he was exposed as….yes really, it’s true….a Nazi admirer.

While Las Vegas has always been a destination for eccentric characters, Englestad may have been a bit too over the top. He was fined a whopping $1.5 million by the Nevada Gaming Commission when it discovered that he hosted annual birthday parties. That doesn’t sound bad until it was also reported the yearly celebration hosted as a private affair at the Imperial Palace was for Adolf Hitler. Yeah, that guy.

My first visit to the Imperial Palace was in 1987. Back then, the “IP” as it was called stood out from the rest of the Strip with it’s Japanese decor and blue hue color. It was the only Asian-themed casino resort in Las Vegas. Naturally, it attracted a heavy concentration of Asian gamblers, both international and domestic. During my early visits there, it was very noticeable that this was the casino where Asians and Asian-Americans really liked to play and stay.

A decade later (spring 1997), Marieta and I visited the IP while on a vacation. We wanted to see the famous car museum which was then officially known as “The Auto Collection.” It’s hard to put Engelstad’s deviant eccentricities and habits aside (his views weren’t widely known back then), but the car collection and museum was stunning. I recall it cost only $8 to enter and you could spend as much time as you wanted, and/or take narrated tours when the guide told the guests about each car. The collection had more than 300 cars total, including Hitler’s motorcade parade touring Mercedes Benz, which is the imposing black beast of an icon seen in most historical footage. It’s probably the only Hitler possession that remains intact. I remember seeing the car in person and feeling both intimidated by how spectacular it looked, while also thinking of the horrors against humanity attached to its memory. Even back then, the Nazi car was controversial. Understandably, Hitler’s car was an unfathomable “attraction” to many. Perhaps had Engelstad not been the proprietor, it might have been acceptable purely on the basis of its rarity and historical collectibility. Trouble was, the car was a magnet for admiration (photos of the car were for sale–on site). All this was despite a very large sign of a disclaimer positioned next to the car noting that Hitler’s Mercedes wasn’t intended as a tribute. Perhaps this sign might have been credible until those April 20th birthday parties were reported.  Ooops.

At the height of it’s popularity and size, the Imperial Palace was among the largest hotels in the world. When Engelstad died in 2002, his IP was the second-largest privately owned hotel in the world. Later, Harrah’s (which became Caesars Entertainment) purchased the resort, starved it of desperately-needed upkeep, ran it into the ground, renamed it as “The Quad” (what the fuck is a Quad?), and by their own grotesque mismanagement with golden parachuter Gary Loveman as CEO ended up charging $14 a night for rooms in it’s final years because the smelly IP couldn’t get anyone to stay inside the dump (*see footnote below). The car museum, which had once been a great attraction, closed down.

Today, I have no idea where all those classic and antique cars ended up, including Hitler’s now missing Mercedes Benz.

Marieta posed for this photo inside The Auto Collection at the Imperial Palace in 1997.

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Footnote: Today, the Imperial Palace is called The Linq.

Postscript: A buddy of mine, who was a pro poker grinder, lived at the IP in its final year. He paid $14/night, which came out to about $600 monthly, and that was with fresh linens, towels, and maid service. TV, electric, water, gas — all inclusive. You couldn’t live anywhere in Las Vegas for that price. Plus, he could walk to “work.”