Classic style redecorates Eldorado's rooms

The hotel room renovation that wrapped up at The Eldorado Hotel Casino last week required a careful blend of artistic design and construction management.

The renovation of 401 rooms in the hotel's Skyline tower including spa suites and king and queen rooms began in March 2003.

The work took a break during the busy summer season and resumed in October.

All that's left in the project is remodeling of hotel corridors and the renovation of executive suites on the 26th floor.

Taking a deep breath as the project nears its completion is Rhonda Carano, who oversaw design of the project.

While the rooms' previous design dated only from the late 1990s, she said the hotel's management agreed on the for a facelift.

"After a period of time, your rooms need a fresh look," she said.

"Our rooms were getting a little tired."

If nothing else, the color palette and some of the accessories in the rooms were becoming dated.

Where to begin? Carano and her design team started by careful consideration of the philosophy and position in the market of The Eldorado, a philosophy Carano summarized as "casual elegance." From there, the designers made two key decisions:

* They wanted warm decor with lots of emphasis on improved and updated lighting.

* The rooms would feature a clean, open look.

The look of the rooms, Carano said, reflects the way that customers use their room at a casino property.

In surveys, they've said they want a comfortable room with plenty of living space, but they're not likely to spend long hours in the room.

And that, in turns, means that Carano's team decided to pay most of their attention to the basics of the rooms good beds, excellent bath facilities, good television sets.

Those were the easy questions.

From there, Carano said, a multitude of small issues needed to be addressed.

Where should the mini-bar be located? How about the ironing board? In choosing furnishings, Carano's team looked for pieces with classical lines that aren't likely to become outdated quickly.

Just as important, she said, was the need to select furnishings that met the needs of a busy hotel.

Housekeepers, for instance, looked over proposed bedcoverings and upholstery and offered opinions whether they could be kept clean.

Engineering staff members wanted to ensure they wouldn't have unnecessary headaches with television sets or plumbing.

At the same time, Carano said designers kept in mind that visitors to hotel rooms find themselves in a strange environment and don't want to struggle with simple matters such as finding a light switch.

"You're constantly trying to make the room customer-friendly," she said.

One of the final tests of the design, meanwhile, was the ability of construction crews to renovate rooms at The Eldorado without fouling up the hotel's business.

That meant that three floors were closed at a time as crews worked their way through 25 floors of the tower.

By the time renovation crews had some experience with the job, Carano said they completed each set of three floors in just under three weeks.

"It goes really quickly," she said, noting that construction crews faced challenges of their own making sure they kept the rest of the hotel clean, working at odd hours to reduce disruptions to other guests.

The renovation has met the most important test of all.

Customers like it.

"We've had nothing but nice compliments," she said.

"This is a nice room.

For the money, it's a great room."