User:JohnMarcom/sandbox
JohnMarcom (talk) 23:54, 25 May 2020 (UTC) Roger Thomas (born 1951)[1] is an American interior designer best known for his work on resort hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, including Bellagio, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas. His work also extends to other areas of the world, including Wynn Macau, Encore Macau and Wynn Palace in China. Until 2019 he was the Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development.[2] He is an advisor to Wynn Resorts and principal of The Roger Thomas Collection.
Thomas has been named five times to the Architectural Digest AD100 list of the world's preeminent architects and designers, and was inducted into the Interior Design Magazine Hall of Fame in 2015.
Early life and education
Thomas was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada.<refname="Hansen">Hansel, Mark (20 Feb 2009). "Roger Thomas is honored as home-grown design icon". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved 25 May 2020.</ref> In the 1950s, his father, E. Parry Thomas, was CEO of the Bank of Las Vegas, the only bank willing to loan money to area casinos.[1][3]
After spending his final two years of high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, Thomas earned a BFA in art history from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in partnership with Tufts University, where he was trained in painting, sculpture, textiles, metalsmithing and ceramics.[4]
Thomas later attended The Interior Design Institute in Newport Beach, CA, where he received his master's degree of Design.
Career
Interior Design
In 1974, Thomas began designing interiors for banks and other financial institutions. He spent seven years running the Las Vegas office of design house Yates Silverman, designed penthouses for the Stardust Hotel and Casino, and designed his first casino, the Lady Luck, in a Saturday Night Fever motif. Thomas felt the standard design of the city's casinos had a disorienting, claustrophobic layout lacking décor, and that their designs relied too heavily on fantasy or a limited set of historical references.
In 1980, Steve Wynn, a family friend, asked Thomas to join a team designing the first major ground-up resort in Las Vegas in 25 years, a hotel and casino more sophisticated than others in the city. This would become The Mirage resort and hotel, which opened in 1989.[3][4][5] Thomas's work designing the interiors of the tropical-themed Mirage and swashbuckler-themed Treasure Island, which opened in 1993, began to change the image of properties on the Las Vegas Strip from casinos with hotel rooms to luxury resorts.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
References
- ^ a b Lehrer, Jonah (19 March 2020). "Royal Flush". New Yorker. The New Yorker. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
- ^ "Roger Thomas Wynn architect". Las Vegas Rotary Club. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
- ^ Friess, Steve (6 May 2009). "The Man Behind the Strip". Advocate. The Advocate. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
- ^ "Designer Roger Thomas's Early Career". ArchitecturalDigest.com. 30 Nov 2013. Retrieved 25 May 2020.