Sands Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas, Nev.). Advertising and Promotion Dept.

The Sands Hotel opened in December 1952. A controversial group of investors fronted by Texas gambler and oilman Jake Freedman and New York nightclub boss Jack Entratter built what was considered at the time one of the world's most lavish hotels and a showcase Las Vegas resort. The combination of Entratter's connections in the entertainment world (from his days at the Copacabana Club in New York) with the hotel's lavish spending on entertainment assured the Sands a preeminent place in show business for top-name entertainers and shows. In the Sands famous Copa Room, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. held court in the 1950s and 1960s surrounded by legions of glamorous Copa Girls in beautiful costumes. After the death of Jake Freedman in 1958, Entratter and Carl Cohen, the casino boss, took over the hotel as president and vice-president. The original hotel was a series of low-rise structures. In 1963 construction of the 15-story tower was begun, part of an overall expansion and renovation as a major convention facility. Howard Hughes acquired the hotel in 1967 from Entratter and Cohen for $23 million and planned a "new Sands", a gargantuan 400 room resort, which he never built. Dallas-based Inns of the Americas, Inc. purchased the Sands from Hughes' Summa Corporation in 1981 and re-opened the "new Sands" in January 1982, with a totally renovated 30,000 square foot casino, twice the size of the original. Kick Kerkorian's MGM Grand, Inc. owned the hotel briefly for two months in 1988, but quickly sold it to the current owner, Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Interface Group, for $110 million. Adelson, a producer of trade shows, built a 575,000-square foot convention facility, the Sands Expo and Convention Center, which opened in 1990. Further expansion, including a new high-rise tower, was planned but not realized. The hotel was imploded in 1996.