Caesars Palace upgrades villas to capture more of high-end market — PHOTOS

Caesars Palace is going for gold with its latest renovation.

The 51-year-old hotel and casino has upgraded 10 suites on the 29th floor of the Palace Tower — where Hillary and Bill Clinton stayed last year — to lavish villas to snatch a larger share of the high-end market.

The 10 rooms, ranging in size from 2,750 square feet to 4,085 square feet, have been equipped with $1 million in furnishings and decor, including 24-karat gold-plated faucets, gold-leafed designs, $20,000 televisions that slowly open left and right like a curtain and stone bathrooms.

A night at the freshly renovated pads would start at $3,100.

The renovations takes the number of villas offered to Caesars’ top gaming clients, celebrity guests and wealthy visitors to 24.

Such rooms have historically been reserved for top gamblers and resident performers, but Caesars is opening them to non-gaming clients to better monetize the property.

“Part of the reason we needed additional product like this is because we made more available to non-gaming customers,” said Caesars Palace General Manager Sean McBurney.

Choosing whom to book requires a delicate balancing act, he added.

High rollers would normally generate more for the casino than a wealthy non-gaming guest. But that math can change if the guest is hosting a company meeting or expo that brings hundreds or thousands of people to the property, McBurney said.

“While the mix is still predominately gaming guests who occupy theses villas, we have become more sophisticated in how we yield this type of product,” he said.

The 10 villas are smaller in size than the original 14, which have gained wide popular recognition through movies like The Hangover, which won a 2009 Golden Globe for best motion picture.

Potential non-gaming clients could be a wealthy individual celebrating his bachelor party or a company chief executive seeking to host meetings or a reception during a city convention.

Visitors staying on the 29th floor have their own private elevator. The hallway entrance has two desks for security guards, though their deployment is discretionary. Security cameras are installed in ceiling corners for additional protection.

Guests are ferried to their villas from the airport in a Rolls Royce, Cadillac Escalade or limousine, and serviced round-the-clock by a butler team of 65 people that includes staff speaking Arabic, French, Mandarin and Russian among other languages.

The rooms have been designed to feel like a residence rather than a hotel room, said McBurney. Food is a key element of that “at-home” sensation and orders for ethnic foods from one’s home country are common.

The rooms have been upgraded in lighter and brighter colors, something that is particularly appealing to Asian visitors, McBurney said.

The villas were designed by KNA Design and are part of a larger $100 million renovation of the Palace Tower’s 1181 rooms.

Contact Todd Prince at tprince@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0386. Follow @toddprincetv on Twitter.