Television personality and hospitality mogul Lisa Vanderpump opens her first hotel. By Ryan Slattery
A resort in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip has a new name. In June, following an 18-month top-to-bottom redesign, The Vanderpump Hotel made its debut. The project was a full rebrand that transformed The Cromwell, along with all 188 rooms including 19 redesigned suites, into a boutique hotel-resort named after one of the world’s most recognized television stars – Lisa Vanderpump. This is the first hotel venue in her growing hospitality portfolio.
“You’ve been dining and drinking with me for years. Now, you can sleep with me,” Vanderpump joked in reference to her restaurant empire and new hotel as she addressed the crowd of VIPs at a June 11 grand opening party that included Sharon Osbourne, Lance Bass, and numerous friends from her Bravo TV family.
Located next to two iconic resorts – Caesars Palace is across the street and the Flamingo is the neighbour next door – the small Vanderpump Hotel sits mid-Strip among the giants but strands out for its attention to detail, uniqueness and for the individualized customer service larger resorts cannot offer.
The resort’s big reveal was an evening of celebration and Vanderpump sure knows how to make a theatrical entrance. The new hotelier arrived for her party in a custom Rolls-Royce, exited the car wearing a shimmering silver dress and long sheer purple gloves and entered the hotel flanked by two well-dressed bellmen. There she greeted the invited guests and celebrities who mingled on the casino floor sipping champagne and enjoying caviar before heading upstairs and ending the evening watching a drone show from the rooftop pool.
“The Vanderpump Hotel has been a true labor of love,” said Vanderpump. “Like all my passion projects, this one is deeply personal. I think of it as my very own jewel box on the 50-yard line of the Las Vegas Strip – intimate, inviting and filled with carefully curated details that each tell a story. To finally share it with the millions of Las Vegas visitors from around the world is a dream come true.”
Caesars Entertainment, which owns and operates the property, already had a lengthy relationship with Vanderpump. Prior to the hotel opening, Vanderpump operated three successful restaurant and bar venues in Las Vegas – Vanderpump Cocktail Garden at Caesars Palace, Vanderpump à Paris at Paris Las Vegas and Pinky’s at the Flamingo – and she had other partnerships with the company inside Caesars resorts in Lake Tahoe and Scottsdale, Arizona. So when Caesars executives decided to breathe new life into a property without much brand recognition they turned to the reality television star for input.
“What began as a conversation about a single cocktail lounge has grown into a meaningful and highly successful collaboration, now spanning multiple destinations and culminating in a hotel,” said Sean McBurney, chief commercial officer and regional president of Caesars Entertainment. “Being part of Lisa’s next chapter in hospitality is a very special moment, and we couldn’t be more excited.”
True Vanderpump Style
In interviews over the hotel’s opening weekend, Vanderpump admitted to being a bit obsessive during the design process – a collaboration with her longtime friend Nick Alain and their shared design company Vanderpump Alain. She admitted that she oversaw nearly every aspect of the process, making decisions on everything from the color palette of the felt on the blackjack and craps tables in the casino (a light pink) to the uniforms of the valets. It was quite the laborious project. In addition to the 188 rooms and suites, the property features a 40,000-square-foot casino, a Caesars Sportsbook, sultry lounge that was completely remodeled, and a 65,000-square-foot rooftop pool and nightclub 11 stories above the Strip.
Image: Lisa Vanderpump next to Nick Alain
The resort’s single restaurant GIADA, from celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis, was among the only holdovers from The Cromwell, along with Drai’s After Hours, a basement nightclub. Vanderpump’s signature style – fresh, floral and fun or what she calls an “industrial romantic” – can be found throughout the property with some playful nods to her British heritage including a red telephone booth and English taxicab, along with personal photographs scattered about. On the casino floor, the walkway is lined with crystal chandeliers and custom shades. Purple carpeting is emblazoned with tree branches, flowers and a Vanderpump shield and logo. And a gallery of black-and-white photographs capture Vanderpump’s life with portraits of her with family, friends and pets.
Vanderpump painstakingly hand-selected, prepared and primped every detail of the guest rooms adding olive green armchairs and pink throw pillows for pops of color in luxurious rooms featuring chandeliers and gray wallpaper depicting a soothing, woodsy outdoor scene.
“Taking the next step from restaurateur to hotelier and partnering once again with Caesars Entertainment on another extraordinary project has been such an exciting chapter for me,” said Vanderpump. “Our vision was to create a room that feels like a true retreat, a calming escape just steps from the energy and excitement of the casino floor. The guest rooms are as beautiful as they are serene.”
Another personal, pet project you could call it, was the addition of a brand new bar called Gigolo. The moody, luxe lounge is named in tribute to Vanderpump’s late Pomeranian “Giggy” and includes a five-foot-tall resin statue of her beloved stylish pet wearing a waistcoat and bow tie. An intimate bar, located just off the lobby, Gigolo seats just 50 guests and serves a mix of interesting cocktails that include a hickory-smoked Old Fashioned, a martini for two served with 15 skewered Castelvetrano olives resting atop the stemware, and a Pump and Bump martini, which arrives with caviar on a small mother of pearl spoon. No surprise there. It’s Lisa Vanderpump after all.
***This exclusive interview was originally published in the August 2026 edition of Casino Life Magazine Issue 190 Volume 22 ***
