Take, for example, the Xanadu Hotel and Casino.  In the mid-1970s, it seemed to be an idea whose time had arrived.  It was to be a 1730-room "International Class" Hotel and Casino located on the southwest corner of Tropicana and the Strip, the site of today's Excalibur.  Its builders proposed a vaguely Asiatic pleasure-dome theme that would be used to advantage by Donald Trump's Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, Steve Wynn's Mirage,  and Mandalay Bay, two lots down from the original Xanadu site.

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Xanadu site in 1975

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Same view, 1991: the Excalibur

      At the time, the Strip was primed for expansion.  Most existing properties were in the process of adding hotel towers or soon would be.  Two Martin Stern-designed and Kirk Kerkorian-built casinos, the International (later Las Vegas Hilton) and MGM Grand (later Bally's) had just raised the bar in casino/hotel design.  Whereas previous casinos had featured modest, low-slung motel wings or mid-rise hotel extensions, these two structures opened with over 2000 rooms and suites located in mammoth hotel towers.  These two projects boasted virtually every feature of what is today canonical casino resort construction: a single complex combining casino, dining, and entertainment facilities with a massive hotel.  It did not seem so illogical to build a third megalith on undeveloped land at the south end of the Strip.  But for many reasons, the Xanadu was destined to remain as illusory a fantasy as the reverie that inspired Coleridge's poem.

   In 1975, Las Vegas Boulevard still retained something of the feel of the dusty desert roadway it had been in the 1950s, when small casinos visually dominated by their YESCO signage languished between golf courses and undeveloped land.  The Aladdin and Caesars Palace were adding hotel towers that, while impressive then, would be dwarfed by today's Strip giants.  The Flamingo Hilton had not yet morphed into the slabs of concrete and glass that today dominate the "four corners" of Flamingo Road and the Strip.  The Tropicana, Frontier, and Stardust were still glorified motel casinos lacking high-rise towers.  Circus Circus, Sahara and Riviera, though they had definite vertical presences, were smaller than they are today.  Patrons were happily plugging quarters into slot machines at the Dunes, Hacienda, and Sands, obviously unaware that within twenty-five years those properties would be replaced by the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, and the Venetian, respectively.  Golf courses occupied much of the land where the MGM Grand and New York New York stand today.  The Strip of 1975 was still a strip of commercial development tailing southward from Las Vegas, aesthetically unremarkable and seemingly boundlessly spacious. 

     The property that the Xanadu corporation's directors had selected as of October 1975 was considered prime for hotel casino development.  In the mid 1970s, the shadow of Howard Hughes still froze the development of the Strip.  In the late 1960s, Hughes had purchased most of the vacant land along the Strip and, indeed, a sizeable portion of the available land in the Las Vegas Valley.  Hughes himself never planned to build much on the Strip, but that did not stop him from clutching his land purchases and effectively preventing new projects.    As a result, there was a de facto land shortage on the Strip, and land not controlled by the Hughes Corporation was at a premium.  

     The 48.6-acre site possessed fairly level terrain and no salient geographic characteristics.  At the time, it was owned by Howard Downes of Coral Gables, Florida.  In 1973, Tropicana had planned a twin-tower extension which would have been linked to the existing Trop by a Strip-spanning skywalk.  Tropicana was unable to securing adequate financing for the expansion and its county construction permit lapsed.  This would foreshadow the Xanadu's journey into obscurity.

       When the Xanadu was proposed, the south Strip was effectively underdeveloped; the Aladdin, the Marina, on the site of today's MGM Grand, the Tropicana, and the Hacienda were the only sizeable properties south of the "four corners" of Flamingo Road and the Strip, and even they were for the most part undersized.  Tellingly, there were more golf courses (two) than high-rise hotel towers on this part of the Strip in early 1975.  Real estate appraiser Gary Kent summarized the condition of the site in a report which can be read here.

     The proposed architect, Martin Stern Jr., helped to redefine the casino resort for the corporate era.   His designs for the International and MGM Grand would set the standard for casino design into the next century, both in Las Vegas and in other jurisdictions.  As self-contained suburban entities, casino resorts can be essentially plunked down anywhere, be it along a formerly obscure Nevada highway or a once vibrant seaside resort.  Stern's integrated designs, which combined gaming and entertainment facilities with large hotel towers and parking garages, were anticipated in earlier high-rise Strip casinos but were adapted to the new realities of the gaming industry.  Earlier casinos could sprawl their motel wings across acres of erstwhile desert and allow their guests to park in spacious lots which fronted the properties.  With land prices on the Strip rising and undeveloped land becoming more scarce, the next generation of casino resort required a more compact footprint.  Las Vegas's new prominence as a convention center dramatically increased the number of visitors needing hotel rooms; hence the rapid turn towards high-rise hotel towers.  Stern was able to integrate these new elements into a single unified whole.