“We’re all about the neighborhood; we’re all about that community,” says Steve Dennis, General Manager of the English Hotel. “We want to know who our neighbors are and promote them.”
Main Street, Las Vegas
The English Hotel—a four-story, 74-room luxury boutique hotel located at 921 S. Main St., mere steps from Jesse Carson Smigel’s beloved “Snowball in Vegas” statue—is moving into a neighborhood that couldn’t be more prepared for it. The Todd English-branded hotel will open its doors to a district packed with bars, restaurants and attractions that rival those on the Strip, and Dennis is seeing to it that the outside finds its way inside.
“We’re engaging with local artists to do murals and paintings for the hotel,” he says. “And the brewery across the street [Beer District Brewing] has actually already made an English Hotel-labeled beer.”
It’s a great posture for the English to take, considering the Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel, owned by Weina Zhang and Anna Olin’s ZLife Co development company, probably doesn’t need to take it. The English will open in early 2022 to a Las Vegas that’s soon to receive a lot of convention and international travelers that have been eager to come to our city since March 2020. It’s adults-only, which will sell the place to visitors seeking the elusive “old-school Vegas” experience.
A rendering of the English Hotel
And the hotel isn’t exactly stuck for amenities. It will boast an intimate pool area, with 11 suites that open directly to it; bright, stylish rooms that can be easily adapted for business or pleasure with advance notice to the hotel’s roughly 120-person staff; a beverage cart in every room, complete with its own cocktail shaker; and a Japanese/Mediterranean fusion restaurant and lounge created by its namesake celebrity chef.
The lobby is appointed with antique décor from English’s own collection, and he’s looking at the possibility of providing one of his vintage autos, a 1964 Rolls-Royce, as the hotel’s shuttle.
But Dennis, who’s returning to Vegas after some years away—he managed the Greek Isles/Clarion and Hooters properties before taking work abroad—knows that half of the English’s appeal stems from its location, and he wants to ensure that guests won’t have to wait long to begin exploring it. The staff will know exactly who you are when you arrive—one of the benefits of a place that will only see 74 check-ins on its busiest day—and if you’ve used a mobile app to check in, you won’t even need to loiter in that antique-rich lobby.
“Within 15 minutes, you can be anywhere where the action is in Las Vegas,” he says, whether that means hopping into your car or simply walking out the front door to discover the restaurants, the breweries and art within steps of your room.
“It’s so exciting down here [in the Arts District],” Dennis says. “It’s so unique; there’s so many things to do. If you’ve been a Vegas regular, if you come here all the time, you’ve already done everything. Well, this is something new, and we are the perfect concierge to get you involved.”
