Caesars Palace, is a luxury hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, an unincorporated township in Clark County, Nevada, United States in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Caesars Palace is owned and operated by Harrah's Entertainment. Caesars is located on the west side of the Strip, between the Bellagio and the Mirage.

Caesars has 3,348 rooms in five towers: Augustus, Centurion, Roman, Palace, and Forum. The Forum tower features guest suites with of space.

History

In 1962, Jay Sarno, a cabana motel owner, used $10 million that had been lent to him by the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund to begin plans for a hotel on land owned by Kirk Kerkorian. Sarno would later act as designer of the hotel he planned to construct.

Building of the 14-story Caesars Palace hotel began in 1962. That first tower would have 680 rooms on the 34 acre (138,000 m²) site.

Sarno struggled to decide on a name for the hotel. He finally decided to call it Caesars Palace because he thought that the name Caesar would evoke thoughts of royalty because of Roman general Julius Caesar. Sarno felt that guests should feel they were at a king's home while at his hotel. It is called "Caesars" and not "Caesar's" because every guest is a Caesar.

Sarno contracted many companies to build the hotel, from the Roman landscapes it presents, to the water fountains that have been stages of various events and the hotel's swimming pools.

On August 5, 1966, the hotel was inaugurated, with Andy Williams and Phil Richards providing entertainment; they both played Julius Caesar at a play that night. Two days later, Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat and flamenco guitarist Charo became the first couple to marry in the new establishment.

On December 31, 1967, Evel Knievel unsuccessfully tried to jump the hotel's water fountain with his motorcycle.

In 1969, Stuart and Clifford S Perlman, founders of the Lums chain of restaurants, purchased the hotel. On July 15 of that year, executives lay ground on an expansion area of the hotel, and they buried a time capsule in the area, but the time capsule was stolen days later.

In 1973, the Del Webb company was contracted to build a 16-story building adjacent to the Palace. The project was finished in 1974.

Many top performers, such as Celine Dion, Bette Midler, Liberace, Elton John, George Burns, Diana Ross, Cher, Julio Iglesias, Judy Garland, David Copperfield, Gloria Estefan, and Frank Sinatra have performed at the hotel.

1980s

In 1980, Gary Wells gained much media coverage, and much physical suffering, when he unsuccessfully tried to jump a motorcycle over a water fountain at the Caesars Palace. He sustained injuries to many different parts of his body.

In 1982 Ronnie Vannucci, now playing in Las Vegas-based The Killers, became the youngest musician to play with a band at age six in a lounge in Caesars Palace.

The Caesars Palace Grand Prix car race (a Formula One World Championship event) was held at Caesars Palace in 1981 and 1982. After the Watkins Glen race course was removed from the schedule following the 1980 season, Formula One included an event in Las Vegas for the 1981 campaign. The new race was not popular among the drivers, primarily because of the desert heat. The track was laid out in the parking lot of the Caesars Palace hotel and was surprisingly well set up for a temporary circuit: wide enough for overtaking, it provided ample run-off areas filled with sand, and had a surface that was as smooth as glass. Its counter-clockwise direction, however, put a tremendous strain on the drivers' necks. When Nelson Piquet clinched his first World Championship by finishing fifth in 1981, it took him fifteen minutes to recover from heat exhaustion. The 1982 race was won by Michele Alboreto in a Tyrrell, but the race was not renewed for the following season due to poor attendance.