Sunday, June 17, 4:45 p.m.
I can’t bitch, really. “Where you headed this weekend?” I get asked more times than I care to mark. “Another pool party,” I answer flatly, kidding. As if it really was a chore to be granted audience with the sun in the company of a congregation of beautiful people, get serenaded by the exceptional DJ du jour and submit to being fed the yummiest of frozen treats. Oh yeah, it’s a real chore! I’m doubly excited as this one’s at the Artisan, a new favorite small hotel since my New Year’s Eve base of ops—the Frontier—is destined to go bye-bye. Truly, I couldn’t be more grateful not to have to fight the traffic and the heat on the Strip today, dressing up only to get all sweaty the second I enter another sprawling, breezeless, concrete pool complex. I want ... I want ...
“Something cold! Rum, please!” I tell the bartender, who turns out to be the Artisan’s general manager, Andrew Wheatley. “Boutique, indeed!” In his cabana-wear and banded straw hat, he’s the easy, breezy picture of tattooed cool. I take the resulting pink bucket o’ beverage to a large white leather couch and settle into a nice shady spot.
I had arrived at the mandatory valet around 4:30 p.m. in hopes of catching the midparty crowd, the party going from 2 to 8 p.m. Forgetting completely that it’s Father’s Day and that everyone is out making obligatory Hallmark purchases and getting ready to take Pops out for a nice steak dinner, I note that the crowd is just a tad thin. But from what I’m hearing, the first three weeks of Lavish Sundays have brought record numbers out to the microasis.
The Artisan pool is a tiny jewel box of whitewashed brick encircled just so in a high hedge of swaying palms and rustling bamboo that directs the eye in only one direction—up. From within the space, one loses any sense of place. I once visited a Beverly Hills boutique hotel that evoked much that same feeling, as well as ones in France and Italy. Am I on the Mediterranean? The Grecian urns with their pantheon of gods and goddesses say maybe. Am I in LA? Who knows and who cares? But certainly I am not next to a highway off-ramp. The three somewhat worn cabanas and 10 daybeds speak of a time before the corporatization of all things Vegas; the crowd and music echo that sentiment.
On the sofa next to me, Chicago house legend Jesse Saunders kicks back, keeping an eye on his sound system and listening to DJs Ernan, Que and Prex. “This kinda stuff, I could do this all day long,” he says, gazing out over the pool, watching the girls and guys dance and jump in the water, which is cool enough to get a gasp after laying out in the sun. Though he lives locally, he almost never spins in Vegas and rarely ventures out to the big-name Strip clubs; friends come to town to party, and his reaction is, “Nah, call me when you get out.” But today the spirit is with him, and he jumps behind the decks for a few hours. The soothing sound of the blender occasionally drowns out the music, but the bass reverberates so strongly in the cloistered space that I can almost see Jurassic Park-like ripples in the otherwise still water.
“BaoBaoBippidyBumpBump,” his song goes, and anyone within earshot mouths the familiar gibberish chorus.
It seems that everyone who showed up today is part of one huge group. They come over each week straight from closing the Patio at Empire Ballroom’s Late Night Afterhours, Wheatley tells me, which means they’ve been partying for well over 12 hours. Luckily, one of the Artisan’s 64 rooms is just a stumble away if needed. Starting next week, the whole thing falls back an hour, from 3 to 9 p.m., so they’ll have to adjust their schedules accordingly. I’m not quite sure how this group is still standing, let alone drinking and dancing, but where there is house there is life.
Xania Woodman thinks globally and parties locally. And frequently. E-mail her at [email protected] and visit thecircuit.com to sign up for Xania's free weekly newsletter.