Moulin Rouge site goes up in smoke

A fire tore through a vacant 40-unit apartment building Wednesday at the historic Moulin Rouge, closing Bonanza Road for most of the day and forcing the blighted property's one-day owners to tear the building down.

Las Vegas Fire Department investigators still haven't determined the cause of the fire. No one was injured.

The Moulin Rouge opened in 1955 and lasted less than a year, but it attracted top stars as Las Vegas' first racially integrated hotel-casino. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

On Wednesday, flames lapped the roof of the two-story building for hours after firefighters were called to the blaze at 11:45 a.m. At the fire's peak, thick smoke rose more than 100 feet above the property at 900 W. Bonanza Road, near H Street.

Joyce Sheets, who works at Nevada Restaurant Services across the street from the Moulin Rogue, said she called 911 when colleagues saw smoke coming from a building on the property and a window explode.

Sheets said she initially was concerned firefighters might struggle to put out the blaze.

"There was lots of black smoke," she said. "We were not that far away."

Sixteen fire engines and multiple rescue vehicles were called to the four-alarm fire. Dozens of firefighters were added to rotate shifts, not because of the intensity of the blaze but because of the daytime heat, city of Las Vegas spokesman Jace Radke said.

The high Wednesday was 97 degrees.

The fire happened just a day after a Seattle investment firm took ownership of the property through foreclosure.

Olympic Coast Investment Inc. inherited the property by default after a Tuesday auction failed to attract a winning bidder.

"We are just shocked. I just can't believe it," said John Hoss of Olympic Coast, who was traveling from Seattle to Las Vegas to deal with the fire.

Since the Moulin Rouge closed, developers every few years have announced grand ideas to revitalize the property, located in a rundown, largely industrial neighborhood. None of those plans has come to fruition.

Olympic Coast's plans for the 17-acre property were unknown Wednesday.

The previous owners, Moulin Rouge Properties, filed for bankruptcy in November owing Olympic Coast, its first lienholder, $24 million, Hoss said.

Hoss said Wednesday he didn't know what would be done to clean up the site.

Radke later said that the owners decided to demolish the building.

Until a few years ago, tenants were living in the abandoned hotel-casino's apartments. Radke said nobody is thought to have been in the building when it went up in flames.

A 2003 fire destroyed the casino, which in the hotel's heyday attracted the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra and graced the cover of Life magazine. That blaze left dozens of people without homes. Two men later were arrested on arson charges related to the fire.

In 2006, a 58-year-old tenant of the hotel was found dead after a fire, thought to have started on a bed, tore through his apartment.

The historic hotel's most recognizable feature, its sign, was removed last week and taken to the Neon Boneyard a few blocks away on Las Vegas Boulevard North.

After Wednesday's fire, what remained of the Moulin Rouge included a pile of rubble left behind by demolition, a scattering of abandoned buildings and a weathered banner picturing a high-rise development "Coming Soon!"

Review-Journal writers Benjamin Spillman and Antonio Planas contributed to this report. Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.