In the mid-’50s, Sarno met a prospective female employee, architect Jo Harris. Sarno, whose brother had worked in hotels, admired the then-hot European Modernist style of hotel architect Morris Lapidis, designer of Miami’s famous Fontainebleau. Sarno, with his partner and college buddy Stanley Mallin, installed tile in homes, first in Miami and later in Atlanta. Sarno was a tile contractor in Miami in the early 1950s when he met Teamsters officials Allen Dorfman and Jimmy Hoffa and clicked with them as friends. Sarno had spent $3.6 million developing the Dallas Cabana thanks to a loan from the Mob-connected Teamsters Union pension fund.

The Dallas Cabana had a Romanesque theme, a ten-floor L-shaped hotel tower, private cocktail lounge, separate male and female health clubs, 300 unique guest rooms adorned with drapes, walls and carpets colored in plum, turquoise, reds and olive hues, and fourteen split-level “petite suites.” Patrons were served drinks by waitresses dressed in Roman togas, including, for a while, a young Raquel Welch. In January 1963, Sarno had been a Las Vegas resident for less than two years when he launched his latest project, the Cabana Motor Hotel out in Dallas, Texas, with partners that included the actress Doris Day.

The resort promoter extraordinaire had a few dress rehearsals along the way outside of Las Vegas.

Over the past fifty years, Caesars Palace has left a lasting influence on how Las Vegas gambling houses are planned, built and operated.īut Sarno didn’t create Caesars out of whole cloth. Four years in the making, Caesars would permanently transform practically everyone’s image of Las Vegas from a series of aging neon-lighted roadside attractions to new higher levels of everything - themed architecture, interior design, table service, split-level hotel suites, imported Italian sculpture, colorful fountains and toga-wearing cocktail waitresses. When hotel developer Jay Sarno unwrapped his innovative Caesars Palace hotel-casino for a prolonged grand opening party on August 5, 1966, the Ancient Rome-themed resort was like no other in Las Vegas.

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