Harveys Lake Tahoe Hotel & Casino has completed renovating 519 guest rooms as part of a two year $41 million upgrade that began in 2018.
The guests rooms were in Tahoe Tower.
John Koster, resort senior vice president and general manager said in a statement, “First opened in 1944, Harveys Lake Tahoe is an iconic resort on the South Shore.” He added, “The completion of this major investment demonstrates our ongoing commitment to elevating guest experiences at our resorts and advancing the Lake Tahoe tourism economy.”
One of the additions was Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen Lake Tahoe.
High rollers are starting to return to the Tahoe area, according to Caesars Entertainment’s Executive Chairman of the Board Gary Carano, whose company, formerly Eldorado Resorts, recently acquired Caesars, including its Lake Tahoe market for $17.3 billion. It retained the Caesars brand name. It operates two properties in the Tahoe area, Harvey’s and Harrah’s at South Lake Tahoe.
He told Sam Shad of Nevada Newsmakers, “We were completely surprised about the demand for the large players, the big high-rollers that go to Caesars Palace and go to Las Vegas,” adding, “We have only had the keys to the kingdom a short while but we think there is a lot of opportunity.”
Carano told Shad, “I remember they (high rollers) used to love to go to Caesars Tahoe and wanted to come back to Harrah’s and Harvey’s at the lake, but the management policy up until we took over was that they would not accept the table limits that Las Vegas would. So with our culture, our policy and our philosophy, we immediately told our general manager … to take the same limits they have anywhere at any Caesars Entertainment property. And it is amazing, the demand we have, and the high-limit play they are getting at the lake. That blew us away.”
Carano said it was “disheartening” to see how the rooms looked when they first toured them, before the renovation. “They’ve just been neglected for years.”
Both properties had “good bones” he said, thanks to when they were originally built by Bill Harrah and Harvey Gross. “We are now remodeling those rooms at Harvey’s, those beautiful lakeside rooms with the lakeside views — the best rooms of anywhere in the world, it seems.”
He attributes good marketing to the rebound, praising the “Reno-Tahoe” brand, rather than using just “Reno,” which many people don’t know, while everyone knows Lake Tahoe, he said.
