by Phil Hevener | First time visitors to Henri Lewins Las Vegas Hilton office
were always struck by the presence of the ice cream cooler in Lewins
reception/waiting area.
It was a cooler of the type youd find in a Ben & Jerrys
or Baskin Robbins store, with half barrels of assorted flavors under a sliding
glass cover, complete with cups and spoons.
What no one could miss was the sign over the cooler urging
visitors to help themselves because “nothing beyond this point is
free.”
Good for a chuckle, is what it was another one of the
flourishes of a hotel president who sometimes seemed to put more effort into
being a humorist and showman than a hotel operator.
But Lewin was a premiere operator of hotels, according to MGM
Chairman Terry Lanni, who saw Lewin as a “visionary with a sense of the
importance of fine dining and a quality hotel product long before many of us
were paying attention to anything other than the casino.”
Yes, its a cliché, but what is there to say about
Henri Lewin except that he was one-of-a-kind, as brilliant as he was outspoken
and even outrageous.
The former top Nevada executive for Hilton Hotels died last
week at his San Francisco home. He was 85. The German immigrant who was born
Heinz Lewin began his hotel career as a busboy at San Franciscos Fairmont.
Lanni says he first met Lewin shortly after joining Caesars
World in 1977.
Lanni came away from that session thinking of Lewin as a
“character,” the likes of which the casino business has seldom seen.
He says he quickly came to appreciate Lewins talents as a hotel executive.
Lewin headed Hilton hotel operations in Nevada until 1985 and
was later recruited to run the Sands after its purchase by Sheldon Adelson.
Dennis Gomes, who ran the Hilton casinos during Lewins
last years at the Hilton, remembers his one-time colleague as “a genius and
a showman
all wrapped up in the persona of an executive with an old-school
European appreciation of quality and service in a hotel.”