The land wouldn’t be developed until the late 1980s and early 90s when it became Summerlin, which at that time was the largest master-planned community in the US. Case in point: the film producer and billionaire mogul Howard Hughes bought 22,500 acres along the western rim of the valley in 1952 and became the valley’s largest landowner. In fact, the west side of Las Vegas has been expanding since the city was incorporated in 1911, but it wasn’t until decades later that residential neighborhoods, golf courses, restaurants, and a few resorts spread all the way west toward Red Rock. Of the millions of people that visit Las Vegas every year, more and more are venturing west for at least part of their trip. But there’s an entire swathe of land west of the Strip to explore containing the city’s booming Chinatown, and further west, the toney mixed-use Tivoli Village, Summerlin and its Downtown Summerlin district, all the way west to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. After all, that’s how the resorts were designed-as self-contained cities.
It would be easy to come to Las Vegas and stay only on the Strip-or even never leave your hotel room.
