The paint had barely dried at Lisa Vanderpump’s new namesake Las Vegas Strip hotel when she discovered a critical design flaw.
Seated in the penthouse suite of the Caesars-backed, 188-room Vanderpump Hotel alongside longtime design partner Nick Alain, Vanderpump shares with The Hollywood Reporter the crisis of the day. (An exhausted Pomeranian named Donut on a pearl leash sleeps on an adjacent chair.)
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“The taxi needed dogs,” she says. Not real dogs, of course. “Gold dogs.” In Vanderpump’s world, even the decorative animals have a dress code.
A black London cab had just been installed on the casino floor as a photo moment. To most people, it looked complete, but to Vanderpump the oversight was borderline disastrous. The realization sent her team scrambling. Within 24 hours, a trio of canine statues — including a gleaming gold basset hound riding in the back seat — had been sourced, delivered and installed.
When expressed in Vanderpump’s gentle, aristocratic cadence with a mischievous wink, it all makes sense.
For more than two decades, the entrepreneur and reality television star has built a business on glamour, British wit, swagger and an unwavering belief that almost everything can be improved with a four-legged companion. Dogs, in particular, are one of the enduring emblems of the House of Vanderpump, the carefully cultivated universe that has attracted millions of devotees to her television shows, restaurants and lounges, and now her hotel.
“Normally, people go home at night,” Vanderpump says. “Now they get to spend the night with me.” She pauses. “My eyes will be on them at all times.”
She isn’t entirely joking. Her eyes peer out from a mirror tucked inside a bedside table.
Vanderpump and Alain have spent the past year letting their design imaginations run wild as they built out the hotel. Formerly the Cromwell, and before that Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and the Barbary Coast, the corner property at Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard — directly across from Caesars Palace, on what amounts to the 50-yard line of the Strip — has changed identities several times during its colorful life. Now it has become something else entirely: a full-scale immersion into the Vanderpump universe, with 188 guest rooms, 21 suites and a 40,000-square-foot casino.
References to her restaurants, television shows, beloved pets and personal mythology are woven throughout. Chandeliers drip with crystals. A mural depicts Vanderpump strolling through a rainy London streetscape beside a bright red telephone booth. Hidden within reflective bedside tables are images of her eyes staring back — among of dozens of Easter eggs scattered throughout.
“It’s a corset of mine that’s on display in one of the windows — it’s a nod to the playfulness of the hotel,” she says. “The gentleman’s briefcase and the lady’s evening bag on the opposite side of the lobby provide the yin and yang that we were looking for. Everything about the hotel is playful luxury.”
On the walls, black-and-white photographs document family memories, famous friends — including Gordon Ramsay — and her beloved Pomeranians. In the gift shop, the pups ride swans across tote bags and pose on graphic tees emblazoned with the slogan “Fetch Me a Champagne.” Outside, another Pom, named Armand, trots across a massive video marquee, watching over Flamingo Road like a furry patron saint of indulgence.
This scene-stealing VanderPom, represented by Studio Animal Services, stars in the hotel’s commercial, which follows Armand as he tears through Las Vegas in full celebrity mode. He struts down the Strip eyeing a Great Dane, makes a grand entrance on the purple carpet, gets caught in a Champagne shower, steals bacon from a Bloody Mary, licks Lance Bass’ dice at the craps table and races down the hallway on a luggage cart before landing in Vanderpump’s arms beneath the tagline: “Misbehave Accordingly.” The veteran canine actor’s résumé includes appearances in Euphoria and Barry, as well as national campaigns for Volkswagen and Walmart.
As with any deal that involves putting your name on a Las Vegas Strip resort, Vanderpump had a few non-negotiables. One of them was the name a new cocktail lounge: Gigolo, in honor of Giggy, her beloved late Pomeranian. When she first pitched the name to Caesars executives, “They thought it was named after a male escort,” Vanderpump says, laughing. “Nobody else would say they want an 8-foot statue of their dog in a bar in Vegas.”
And so Giggy got his own lounge. Crimson chandelier shades hang overhead. Crystal fixtures catch the light. Black metal latticework wraps the room, while velvet banquettes circle a central bar. A towering liquor display stretches along the back wall and, presiding over it all, is Giggy — his tuxedo-clad statue a monument to the Pomeranian whose fame helped inspire the Vanderpump Dog Foundation, which has rescued thousands of dogs and advocated for stronger animal welfare laws.
The same attention extends to the drinks. “We go above and beyond in the presentation,” she says. “I don’t want to see just a glass. I want to see beautiful detail.” One cocktail arrives with an oversized olive skewer designed for two. Another, the Hush Hush, asks guests to write down a secret, seal it in a small envelope and place it in the Vanderpump Vault. The Pumptini and the caviar-topped Pump & Bump, already familiar to fans of her restaurants and television empire, make the move to Las Vegas, where even a cocktail comes with its own backstory.
The Vanderpump Hotel is the restaurateur’s 40th concept, and her most ambitious yet. “I wanted it to feel personal,” she says. “Like you’re coming to a house party. I wanted chocolates on the beds, plush bathrobes and room service. I wanted turndown service. As it progressed, and they saw how much passion we put into it. I wanted it to feel like you are coming home.”
For years, Vanderpump and her husband, Ken Todd, have transformed physical spaces into extensions of her television universe. Together, the London-born duo has spent more than 40 years building a hospitality empire that now spans Los Angeles with SUR and a growing collection of Caesars-backed Las Vegas venues: Vanderpump Cocktail Garden at Caesars Palace, Vanderpump à Paris at Paris Las Vegas, Pinky’s by Vanderpump at Flamingo Las Vegas, just steps from the hotel’s front door, and Wolf by Vanderpump locations in Lake Tahoe and Scottsdale.
As Vanderpump spent the past year overhauling the property, she was simultaneously documenting the process for television. The result is Vanderpump Vegas, a limited series built around the race to open — the construction deadlines, the last-minute design calls, the staffing chaos — and the inevitable question of whether the whole thing would come together in time.
“People don’t understand reality television,” Vanderpump says. “You have to make sure we’re getting it right. Make sure we’ve got the humor. Make sure we’ve got the heart. Make sure we’ve got the frantic nature of this whole process — and you only get one shot. You can’t go back.” That means working simultaneously as both producer and subject, capturing not just the milestone moments but also the quieter conversations and conflicts that give the story shape. “You have to hit the points in the most authentic way,” she says. “It’s about getting the story out there and what’s really happening. And there was a lot happening.”
The series doesn’t follow a traditional ensemble cast. Several familiar faces from “Vanderpump Rules” cycle through as the action shifts from West Hollywood to Las Vegas, but the hotel itself is the through line.
“There’s no cast, really,” she says. “We have some of our Vanderpump Rules cast coming out, and you see their lives and their fun. That’s part of the show.”
Switching modes from producer to hotel visionary, LVP already has a pretty good idea what life inside the hotel will look like a year from now.
If these walls could talk? Vanderpump scans the penthouse and lasers in on the “elephant in the room.” “Stop shagging on the pool table,” she says. Then she laughs, doubting that anyone will ever be playing pool at The Vanderpump Hotel.
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