It was around the time that an army of drones spelled out her name over the Strip that I realized…Las Vegas must really like Lisa Vanderpump.
A celebrity presence, and the pomp and circumstance that accompany it, is certainly not new for Sin City, where pop stars set up cushy residencies, legends perform in a vertigo-inducing orb, and famous chefs attach their names to wallet-emptying restaurants—all of which become must-visit destinations for vacationers.
But, as her face seemed to be wallpapered on just about every building on Las Vegas Boulevard—not to mention spelled out in the sky—there was the air of something more significant being announced, like a new era when it comes to celebrity, tourism, and the gloriously notorious desert city.
The Vanderpump Hotel was opening, the first time a reality TV star, most famous for her time on Real Housewives, made such a high-profile gamble in hospitality. This wasn’t watching your nostalgic high-school favorite band playing at The Sphere; it was sleeping in the bed designed by the woman who spent nine seasons arguing over brunches with Camille Grammer and Kyle Richards.
“I always wondered if I’d end up on a street corner of the Las Vegas Strip,” Vanderpump told me the afternoon after her name dazzled in the Vegas sky. “I didn’t know I’d do this good.”
Over the last decade, Vanderpump emerged as the reigning dame of Bravo, coronated thanks to her British-polite puppeteering mixed with a delicious dash of sauciness. “Throw me to the wolves, and I shall return leading the pack” is one of her many quotable catchphrases from her star turn on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
She spun that notoriety into a watercooler-spilling spinoff, Vanderpump Rules, as well as Hulu’s Vanderpump Villa, where she presides as matriarch over a libido-surging troop of service workers, and the upcoming Vanderpump Rules: Lisa Las Vegas, about her hotel opening, the finale of which was filmed at the swanky party we attended. (Everyone keep an eye out for me!)
Her hospitality work is foregrounded in each of her shows, whether it’s the Los Angeles restaurants that routinely detonated group-chat gossiping among reality TV fans in Vanderpump Rules, or the suite of Las Vegas restaurants she’s been operating since the opening of Vanderpump Cocktail Garden in 2019, including Vanderpump à Paris and Pinky’s.
But there’s a difference between eating the famous deviled eggs at Pinky’s or being served a cocktail doubling as an art piece at Vanderpump à Paris and waking up in a bed, rolling over, and a wall-spanning black-and-white photograph of Lisa Vanderpump being the first thing you open your eyes to in the morning. (An experience I had at this opening. Don’t regret it.)
“Misbehave accordingly” is the tagline of The Vanderpump Hotel. Sure, people will stop by a restaurant to take an Instagram with a glass of rosé at the place from the Real Housewives lady. But will they take the step further and stay at a hotel designed by and entirely centered around her fame? That’s what Vanderpump—and Vegas—is rolling the dice on.
Fans of hers “could have watched me for 15 years,” Vanderpump told me. “It’s really a long relationship. You’ve gone to my restaurant. We’ve drunk together. We’ve eaten together. Now we get to sleep together.”
The day after the very Vegas opening party for the hotel—contortionists performed barely clothed in massive champagne glasses erected in the pool—Vanderpump and I chatted in the property’s marquee Gigolo bar, named for her dearly departed Pomerian Giggy, who stole so many seasons on Real Housewives and was the inspiration for the creation of her The Vanderpump Dog Foundation charity.
Several feet from us is a floor-to-ceiling statue of Giggy, presiding over the lively crowd swilling various pink-and-purple cocktail concoctions. For Vanderpump fans, it’s a moving decorative touch. For the otherwise clueless, it’s an awesome, gigantic dog to take a drunk Instagram photo in front of.
When Vanderpump first pitched Gigolo as the name of the bar, executives balked at the raunchy insinuation. “I said, ‘It’s my dog!’” Vanderpump told me, a sly wink in her voice, as is her way. “I think having the statue changes the tone of it.”
Even this detail underscores Vanderpump’s understanding of the Las Vegas aesthetic. There’s a cheekiness to everything in the hotel, from the London taxi cab set up as a photo-op at the entrance to the towering statue of a reality-TV famous dog in the bar that shares a name with male sex workers. But there’s also intention and a profound, meaningfulness that underscores all of it.
“Well, that’s me,” Vanderpump said. “That’s me always.”
The Vanderpump Hotel sits, as Vanderpump proudly told me, at “the 50-yard line” of the Vegas strip. The 188-room boutique hotel is nestled between the Flamingo and the Paris, and across the street from Caesars Palace, where a billboard promoting Kelly Clarkson’s residency casts a shadow on the hotel’s valet.
“When I did her talk show about six years ago, I said you should never even speak. You should only sing,” Vanderpump said, dutifully promoting Gigolo as the perfect pre- or post-concert drinks spot.
The casino floor’s hallway is lit by a gauntlet of shimmering chandeliers, which were salvaged from the original resort and restored by Vanderpump and her design partner, Nick Alain.
Everything screams Vanderpump, sometimes literally, as in the case of the mural of her strolling through a rainy London street or the gallery wall of photographs of her and her family, and otherwise aesthetically: lush velvet and bespoke details permeate everywhere from the hotel rooms to the bar stools.
“Romantic industrial” is the official design term, Alain told me. Like so many things in Las Vegas, it makes for a humorous, though under the hot sun and chiming slot-machine bells, normalized dichotomy: an elevated, posh boutique hotel welcoming tourists in flip flops and cargo shorts. “People start to dress up a little bit when they come to Lisa’s properties,” Alain countered, speaking about her other Vegas restaurants. “That’s been her impact.”
To better understand the viability of an entire hotel under LVP’s name and Vegas’ relationship with her thus far, I spoke with two executives who have worked with her on her restaurants.
Dan Walsh, the senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s, The LINQ, and Flamingo, opened Pinky’s by Vanderpump, a flamingo-themed cocktail restaurant with steampunk-by-way-of-Art-Deco design, with her. And Ken Ostempowski, the senior vice president and general manager of Horseshoe, Paris, and Planet Hollywood, worked with her on Vanderpump à Paris, the strip’s passport to luxury French dining—which translates to serving charcuterie in a birdcage. (I loved it and took so many photos.)
“Her vision to grow her footprint on the Las Vegas Strip is probably something no one saw coming,” Ostempowski said. “She’s just not another pop star or another rock band. She is a visionary, and because of her vision, being able to see that there is a following of people who love her and love what she represents as a strong woman, as a person who believes in trying to create the extraordinary, this is what she’s done.”
Not to veer too far into being a press release for Lisa Vanderpump, but both execs were animated when talking about how Vanderpump is a singular person to mark this celebrity transition.
Walsh remember when they were first brainstorming Pinky’s, and Vanderpump looked at the ceiling and asked what the catwalks were all about. That was where the casino bosses used to look over the floor, he explained. In her stilettos and a hard hat, she demanded to walk it. Months later, “She camped out here and set up a laptop in a chair in, in the live construction zone. And she was giving out direction, telling people where she wanted things to go, what she wanted it to look like.”
“It’s a cliche thing,” Ostempowski said. “I hate to say she’s one of one, but it’s hard to envision other people that have the ability to cross over from restaurants and lounges and TV into building a hotel concept and design.”
Still, as much fun as the weekend was, there was a big question that remained: If she builds it, will they come?
(In line with her “misbehave appropriately” tagline, I could only imagine the reaction Vanderpump would have to that remix of the iconic Field of Dreams quote.)
But that is the elephant in the room, the giant statue of Gigi looking down on us, if you will: Is there a market for people to come to Las Vegas just to stay at the hotel opened by their favorite reality TV star?
I polled the people in the most hallowed space in my life, my Bravo group chat, asking if they would travel to Las Vegas to stay at Lisa Vanderpump’s hotel.
The resounding response aligned with what my chat with executives want to hear: Probably not, but if they were going to Vegas anyway, that’s where they would book a stay because they love Lisa, and the novelty—and the Instagrams—are worth seeking it out. (Currently, reservations hover around $200-400 per night, which is inline with Caesars’ pricing but about double what Flaming is charging.)
“Within the Bravo economy, fans will create their own Epcot experience a variety of ways: a trip to the Regency in NYC for example (where Harry Dubin did once offer me his cell),” content creator Sarah Galli, who hosts the Andy’s Girls podcast, told me. “While Lisa remains a legend in the Bravo history books I don’t know if a fan would fly cross country—or even out of state—to stay at her namesake hotel. Now, if I was kidnapped and forced to visit Vegas with a hotel of my choosing? Lisa would absolutely be a contender, specifically because of the Bravo brand. And if she was to ever return to BH….I might consider an upgrade.”
The thing is, that seems to be exactly what the Strip is asking for.
Vegas is, as Vanderpump told me, “America’s playground.” And people are looking for something familiar to play with.
“Flamingo has 3,500 hotel rooms. If you put any restaurants here, the 3,500 hotel customers have to eat somewhere. Chances are they’re probably gonna eat at some of the restaurants you have in your building,” Walsh said. “The goal is to keep them in your building. If you can get someone, a celebrity name, that will bring people to your property that’s not staying at your property, that’s the ultimate home run.”
That’s what LVP is doing.
Ostempowski tells me the appeal about having someone like Lisa Vanderump on the Strip. It’s a singular name. Bachelorette parties. Friend trips. Weddings. Anniversaries. “This is a bucket list place,” he said. “People come to Las Vegas as a bucket list, but then they come here and they go and tour all the different places where she has.”
The last time I traveled to Las Vegas for work, it was the last week of Céline Dion’s residency, and I was reporting on how her powerhouse presence led to an infusion of music-star residencies that cemented the city as an entertainment destination. I never imagined that a reality TV star opening a hotel would be the next evolution of that.
One of the most remarkable things about the Vanderpump Hotel is how heavily it leans into that. Lisa Vanderpump is everywhere—on the walls, over my bed, in the emails confirming my reservation—and also literally there. “When you go to see Garth Brooks, Garth Brooks is not sitting in a restaurant hanging out,” Ostempowski said. “But Lisa will sit in our restaurants, and people will be like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s Lisa!’”
I chatted with a bunch of celebrities at the opening party. Sharon Osbourne was there. There were the drag queen alums of RuPaul’s reality show that had the innocent girl next to me whisper, “That’s not Britney Spears, right?” (It was Derrick Barry.) “Everything about Lisa is fabulous and sparkly and elegant and elevated,” Real Housewives of Orange County star Heather Dubrow told me at the red carpet. “To me, it’s like chandeliers and champagne,” he husband, Botched’s Terry Dubrow, agreed.
But what I kept going back to was the people. The ones without cameras in their faces.
Well, they certainly did; not a person walked into The Vanderpump Hotel without a photo opportunity on mind. But, for all the pomp and circumstance and cirque and soleil and spheres and hell’s kitchens, there is something that the hotel promises that I think is actually unique: connection.
Lisa Vanderpump and I both gestured broadly while we finish our conversation, as if we’re landing airplanes, and we started ranting about the state of the world. But that’s why she wanted to launch this.
“I think you immerse yourself in the luxury hotel, touch these velvet chairs, be under these beautiful lights. That’s where we should be right now in our life,” she said. “Turn off the TV, jump into, like, having a connection.”
And when you do, per her instructions, misbehave accordingly.
