The Glass Pool Inn was an old 1950's era motel that was a fine example of the type of roadside lodging that was common along the Las Vegas Strip in the mid-century era. The Glass Pool was originally name the Mirage Motel, but sold its name to Steve Wynn who was building the Mirage Casino and Hotel in 1989. The famous pool portholes The Glass Pool Inn distinguished itself from the typical roadside motel with its unique pool, which featured glass windows to see in and out of. These port hole shaped windows are quite eye-catching for those that pass by along Las Vegas Blvd and was the scene for many movies. Glass Pool Inn marquee The motel closed its doors in 2003 after over 50 years in operation. The motel units, offices, and the pool itself were razed shortly thereafter in 2004 and just the sign remained, standing lonely by itself above the empty lot. At dusk the marquee with its backlight would light up in same blue hue as the swimming pool water. When the place was open, the Glass Pool Inn offered the standard amenities to customers, including color TV, phones, laundromat service, kitchens, and satellite TV.

Check out the way the swimming pool shows off its colors as dusk settles along Las Vegas Blvd. Below was the archived entry in Preservation Alley in January 2004. Las Vegas, NV --- Where do you go, ye olde motels? Traveling down the Vegas strip brings you to a familiar sight on thehow much does salt water pool maintenance cost south side of town. best vacuum cleaner multi surface Pool Inn and it dynamic pool with windows... yes... actual windows alongcheapest dyson vacuum cleaners uk the side of its above ground pool. Glass Pool Inn Marquee In October, the Las Vegas Review Journal published an article stating the wrecking ball is looming for the Glass Pool Inn and surrounding

With Vegas' thirst for megaresorts, it's not surprising to see yet another the mid-century destined for the wrecking ball. The inn was originally called the Mirage Motel when it opened in 1952 and changed name and hands when the Mirage Hotel opened up further down the strip. The most unique aspect of the Glass Pool is just that, the glass pool. The windows alongside the pool advertised the blue waters inside, tempting to travelers and locals alike, especially during the hot summers Vegas is known for. Glass Pool Inn (November 2003) It's always sad to see a roadside treasure disappear, but to see the old familiar friend gated off and destined for oblivion shows how the buildings we take for granted can be demolished More Lost Treasures from Las VegasLAS VEGAS — Five decades ago, the Las Vegas Strip was just a dusty, empty desert highway connecting Los Angeles to what is now downtown's cluster of casinos.Travelers in those pre-air conditioned days found no pyramids, faux European cities or half-size Statues of Liberty beckoning them.

But there was a motel with a 9-foot aboveground swimming pool and its seven mammoth portholes showing off what must have seemed to weary drivers to be the bluest water ever.The pool and motel are scheduled for demolition, marking the destruction of one of Sin City's most enduring icons. In the 1990s alone, scenes from "Casino," "Indecent Proposal" and "Leaving Las Vegas" were filmed there. Photographer Annie Leibowitz shot Brad Pitt there for Vanity Fair. Once, scuba divers even played poker underwater to encourage donations to Jerry Lewis' annual muscular dystrophy telethon.It is unclear when the motel will become rubble--the owners, TG Investments, won't give the date or discuss plans for the site--but it was vacated and employees were laid off in mid-September. "No trespassing" signs hang from a chain-link fence around the 56,000-gallon peach-colored pool, which is still filled with water."It's another of our treasured, aged landmarks that's going to be demolished," said David Frommer, president of the Nevada chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

"There's a sentimentality about these things, but part of the amazement of Vegas is that we continually reinvent ourselves. It's almost an accepted practice that things go down in search of the next generation of building."In this case, the next generation, the mega-resorts with 3,000-plus rooms based on fantastical themes, has long since arrived. Today there seems little use for a rundown 46-unit motel along the 10-lane Las Vegas Boulevard.The Glass Pool Inn--it was known as The Mirage Motel until Steve Wynn bought the name for $350,000 for the resort he opened in 1989--sits on some of the last land left on the Strip where major casinos can be built, so developers have bought up the jigsaw of parcels to create contiguous plots.Longtime owners Allen and Susie Rosoff, who sold their 1.5 acres for $5.5 million in 1999, say they are pleased to hear of the pool's demise."Truthfully, it makes me feel good," said Allen Rosoff, 69. "The place was getting so deteriorated that I felt that with all the fond memories of almost 50 years involved in my family, I would rather remember what it was than see how rundown the motel was getting."

Still, it was never the ordinary, casino-less motel that attracted passers-by--or Hollywood. The star was the 26-foot-by-55-foot kidney-shaped pool with the 4-foot-wide portholes that Rosoff's parents and uncle, who also owned Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, installed in 1955 to make the place stand out from other inns on the block."We were way out on the south end of nothing," Rosoff said. "People used to come in asking how far it was to Las Vegas."`It screams Las Vegas'Movie producers noticed immediately. The first film shot there was "Las Vegas Shakedown" in 1955, starring Dennis O'Keefe. A parade of cameras followed. Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue kissed underwater in "Leaving Las Vegas." Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore checked in while considering Robert Redford's "Indecent Proposal." Cindy Crawford filmed an episode of her old MTV show, "House of Style," in a suite that was once Rosoff's parents' apartment.The Las Vegas tourism board once shot an advertisement in which bikini-clad women played a slot machine while submerged in the pool."

It screams Las Vegas, it's so eye-catching," said Trent Othiel, president and co-owner of Insomnia Entertainment, a new Vegas-based movie production company. "You immediately look when you pass it. That's what you want on film."Producers also cast the motel as an unsavory character. In an episode of the Robert Urich television vehicle "Vega$," $1,000-a-night teenage hookers were living there. Drug deals and murders were common and the place was often used as the archetypal sleazy Vegas joint. But Rosoff, who said in 50 years the only actual death on the premises was a suicide, never cared."Publicity is publicity, good, bad or otherwise," he said. "I would tell a guest, `I'm going to put you in room 126,' and the guest would ask, `What happened there?' I'd say, `That's where Marilu Henner and Nicolas Surovy slept in the movie `Stark.' People get impressed that way."Usually, Rosoff had little contact with the stars, although he remembers admiring Urich's Thunderbird, chatting amiably with Henner and being surprised by how short Moore is."

In the beginning, all this was really fascinating, but after a while, it became old hat," Rosoff said. "We'd meet them, see them, say hello. They were there to film. It's not like they came to socialize. But for a little tiny hotel, we had quite a following around the world."Local interest limitedStill, there's little interest locally in rescuing the landmark. Clark County Museum administrator Mark Ryzdynski said moving the pool would not be feasible, but he said the museum would "further document it before its destruction and make sure the photographic record is complete up until and through its final days." Many Las Vegans reacted with disappointment at plans to raze the pool, but few can recall the last time they visited it.One local Glass Pool aficionado is Adam Martinez, a bartender and photography instructor who organized weekly photo contests at the pool in the 1990s at which aspiring models could show up and have free portfolio pictures taken by photographers.."It's a sad thing to see it go," Martinez said.