Many considered Howard Hughes as an eccentric billionaire but a very influential figure in various fields like film, aviation, and during his latter years, real estate and entertainment, especially with how he helped transform Las Vegas into the luxurious, cosmopolitan city that it is today.
The story goes that one night on Thanksgiving weekend of 1966, he had been driven to the Desert Inn, where he stayed for a few weeks before Moe Dalitz, the owner of the Desert Inn at the time, had to ask Hughes to vacate the penthouse to make room for the expected influx of New Year's Eve guests.
Instead of leaving, Hughes started negotiating to buy the hotel, and was able to purchase the property for $13 million, $6.2 million in cash and $7 million in loans. Hughes then proceeded to stay in that room for the next four years without ever leaving.
Due to suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mania for secrecy, and germophobia, he had the windows taped shut, and instructed the staff regarding the number of tissues they needed to use whenever they carried stuff in and out of his suite.
Still, from inside that room, he conducted all his business, having his public liaison Robert A. Maheu to handle all the affairs needed outside. After buying the Desert Inn, he also bought the Sands, the Frontier, and the unfinished Landmark. He also bought residential lots, the North Las Vegas airport, and all the land surrounding McCarran International Airport, along with several casinos operated by Summa Corp.
Hughes had larger-than-life aspirations for Vegas which included a high-speed train and turning the city into a metropolis with clean air and clean water in the middle of the desert. Despite this, he was carried out of his room at the Desert Inn on a stretcher and flown to the Bahamas in 1970. He never returned to Las Vegas, and died in 1976.
After his death, his company Summa Corp. focused on developing the master-planned community of Summerlin from all the land that Hughes had bought in Nevada. Development had started in 1988 and it finished by the end of 1990 with the first residential village, park, and school.
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