Create an oasis in the middle of a hot, sandy, arid desert.
That was the first casino resort assignment received by Don Brinkerhoff, CEO of Lifescapes International, and his team—on one of the greatest midways in the world.
The client? Steve Wynn. The job? Unique. The challenge? Delivering an experience beyond any customer’s expectations.
Brinkerhoff’s solution? Locate a mountain topped by a “volcano” at the apex of the turn along Las Vegas Boulevard. Guests approaching from Southern California, the largest market for Vegas at that time, would be enticed to discover the unique and bold attraction, which included cascading waterfalls and a jungle of majestic palms surrounded by a lush, verdant tropical rainforest complete with animals, swimming pools and a dolphin habitat.
The result? A destination like nothing seen before in Clark County—or anywhere else. It would become the Mirage—the first casino resort to be built on the Las Vegas Strip in more than 16 years. Three decades later, it still draws millions of visitors from all over the world.
For three years, the Mirage had no competitors. Then other gaming operators, inspired by the casino’s success, built their own fully integrated resort destinations, hiring Lifescapes as the landscape architect on the vast majority of these new projects.
“Lifescapes can take a blank canvas and make something so very special out of it,” marvels Craig Cavileer, executive vice president of Majestic Realty Co. and CEO of its Silverton Casino Lodge in Las Vegas, a property that has undergone more than $250 million in renovation and expansion.
Loving the Landscape
Lifescapes’ laser-like focus on creating financially successful landscape destinations to boost the owners’ bottom line—and extend the customers’ stay—has been at the heart of the firm’s business model since its inception six decades ago.
Working in collaboration with developers, operators, architects and consultants, Lifescapes’ team has created memorable, iconic landscape environments at more than 15 casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip alone—and at 40 more across the country and around the world. The firm’s impressive portfolio has one thing in common: spectacular garden destinations.
Facilitating the owner’s vision requires commitment and participation by the entire development team. This requirement is a Lifescapes International prerequisite.
In addition to being beautiful and drawing multitudes of visitors, Lifescapes creations also produce additional income streams for their clients.
“Don and Lifescapes showed that landscape architecture can be an attraction that can power up the revenue at many businesses,” says Paul Steelman, CEO of Las Vegas-based Steelman Partners, who has worked closely with Lifescapes on numerous projects over the years.
Brinkerhoff’s substantial contributions and innovations in the gaming industry have been recognized by the American Gaming Association, which in 2016 inducted him into the AGA Hall of Fame—the first landscape designer ever so honored. The Hall of Fame honors achievements in gaming industry leadership and entertainment; investiture is the highest respect accorded by the gaming entertainment industry.
At his induction, Brinkerhoff recognized members of his senior executive team, who worked side by side with him for four decades, and for the last decade have been successfully leading the company.
The induction was a well-deserved accolade for Brinkerhoff and his late wife, Barbara, who started Lifescapes in their bedroom with one drafting table in the corner and four small children causing havoc throughout the house. Don was the trained landscape architect. Barbara was equally creative with floral and planting design, as well as managing the business and the family.
Barbara quickly gained an international reputation for incorporating lush gardens with a cacophony of color and texture complementing Don’s design approach and philosophy.
Noted international real estate developer Rick Caruso stayed at Bellagio—which has another iconic garden destination designed by Lifescapes International—and was so captivated by the property’s Italianesque beauty that he tracked down Lifescapes and asked the team to design a “garden that happened to have retail in it.”
That project would become known as the Grove—one of the top retail properties in the country, winning coveted Project of the Year Awards from both ICSC and the Urban Land Institute. The Grove, which receives an average of 49,000 daily visitors (more than Disneyland), is well-known for its inviting ambiance and high-caliber retail offerings.
“Barbara was one of the greatest landscape artists with whom I ever had the pleasure of working,” Caruso says. “She brought an incredible amount of energy to the project, which was an essential component in creating the destination retail environment.”
Vegas Versions
With its innovations and beautiful gardens, Lifescapes simply changed the realm of landscape architecture, says Leonard Bergman, president of BWA, a world-class architectural and interior design firm based in Las Vegas that has completed major projects for Caesars Palace, Hard Rock and Paris Las Vegas, among others.
“Lifescapes considers the human emotional response first, rather than what plants to select and place,” says Bergman. “They are one of the most creative design firms ever.”
Lifescapes’ credo is simple: “We create gardens people love.”
That’s an understatement. Lifescapes goes above and beyond the usual scope of the job, and is adamant about creating the best environment possible. Bhavna M. Mistry, formerly affiliated with Caesars Entertainment Corp.,
recalls working with Brinkerhoff and Lifescapes when Harrah’s—now Caesars Entertainment—was building its first 27-story tower at the edge of New Orleans’ historical district.
“It was a street that we really wanted to be like no other in New Orleans,” she recalls. “I wanted it to become a destination street, where people felt like they were transported to Europe.”
Brinkerhoff and the Lifescapes team knew that covering the street with asphalt wouldn’t deliver a correct sense of place. They recommended granite pavers instead—which were more expensive.
“Don and his team were right and Harrah’s understood Don’s thinking,” Mistry recalls. “In the end, Lifescapes created this wonderful European street with beautiful sidewalks and large, striking Japanese yews. The street is so beautiful that when there is a major sporting event in New Orleans, the television networks often use it as a background for broadcasting. It’s become a wedding destination, too. It shows you the power of good design—the extraordinary and the ordinary—which is why you hire someone like Lifescapes for these kinds of ideas. Putting in pavers was absolutely the right decision.”
Working hand-in-hand with clients like Caesars is a hallmark of Lifescapes’ approach.
“You need to listen attentively, work expeditiously, interact skillfully and present confidently,” says Andrew Kreft, Lifescapes’ director of design. “The active participation during the early concept phase is crucial to developing a collaborative relationship with the client, as well the rest of the design team. It’s important to understand that everyone is integral and essential to the process. This consensus-based design approach allows for evolutionary growth from the original vision and helps us all to guide and articulate the design direction.”
Over the last three decades, Lifescapes has worked with major casino industry property owners and operators including Golden Nugget Resorts, the Genting Group, Mirage Resorts, Bally’s, Pinnacle Entertainment, Diamond Resorts International, Boyd Gaming, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment Corp., Las Vegas Sands Corp., Station Casinos and others.
Lifescapes also designed the iconic 4.5-mile Las Vegas Boulevard National Scenic Byway for Clark County, encouraging all property owners’ participation starting with the early concept phases. The investment in the Las Vegas Strip is seamless and well integrated, a benefit of involving all stakeholders from the beginning.
Building a Reputation
Working in an international tourist destination like Las Vegas benefited Lifescapes in other ways. Visitors saw Lifescapes’ work in the city, and the firm soon began designing numerous luxuriant gardens for clients in the Far East and elsewhere. That resulted in Lifescapes working on large-scale hotels, residential communities and mixed-use projects in more than 20 cities in the People’s Republic of China. Most of the developments are similar to projects in Las Vegas; Lifescapes has become the go-to expert for designing gardens atop subterranean parking structures.
With the expansion of gaming in Macau, Las Vegas Sands Corp. hired Lifescapes International to provide landscape design services for the Venetian (the firm also worked on Sands’ Venetian and Palazzo properties in Las Vegas) and the Four Seasons Macau, with Wynn Resorts bringing the firm on to work on the Wynn Cotai Palace, and MGM asking Lifescapes to help with its property in Cotai.
Other work followed, including the Paradise City Integrated Resort and Casino in South Korea for Paradise Hotels/Sega Sammy Holdings. The development opened in May 2017.
Lifescapes International has worked with notable architectural firms including Bergman Walls & Associates, Cuningham Group, Delawie Architects & Planners, Friedmutter Group, Gensler, Klai Juba, KGA Architecture, Paul Steelman Partners, SOSH Architects and others.
The firm continues to innovate. Lifescapes was one of the first, if not the first, to see the added profit potential of expansive water activities, says Joe Emanuele, senior vice president of design and construction for Hard Rock International in Orlando, who was introduced to Lifescapes when he was working in Las Vegas for the Friedmutter Group.
“I collaborated with Don and his team on the Pool at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, which was a game-changer,” Emanuele recalls. “It was this beautiful dome and pool. Lifescapes created a striking environment that even today is quite amazing—a tropical environment indoors that can be enjoyed year-round. Nothing like that had been created of that magnitude before. Lifescapes built a model of the entire pool and dome. The project instantly became an amazing attraction for that property and for Atlantic City.”
Lifescapes also created iconic landscapes in Atlantic City for the Borgata, the Water Club, Harrah’s and Bally’s Wild Wild West.
“The inclement weather made it necessary to bring the outside in,” explains Roger Voettiner, senior executive and vice president of design for the firm. “We designed enclosed pools and a VIP club pool with exotic interior planting, which included the use of large tropical trees and palms procured from Florida. The concept of expanding the use of the pool area for other events during evening hours soon became a popular and profitable trend across the country.”
Building on those ideas, Lifescapes designed Tao Beach at the Venetian for Las Vegas Sands, Encore Beach Club (with Roger Thomas of Wynn Design and Development) at Encore and numerous other water activities at other casino resort properties including Downtown Las Vegas, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, among others. These “party pools” continue to evolve, with many new water activities offered in such places as Station Casinos’ Palms.
At the same time, the firm continues working on new casino projects nationally and internationally, including Wilton Rancheria Elk Grove Resort near Sacramento, California, with Boyd Gaming, and several other Native American projects and casino resorts in the U.S. and overseas.
One of the reasons the firm has been successful around the world is its keen knowledge of quality plant materials, which is essential to creating unique landscape environments. Lifescapes works diligently with clients to understand their preferences as well as their exclusions—a key factor in working on the $300 million expansion of the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California.
“Pechanga wanted us to use a variety of oak trees on the project because they are considered sacred, heritage trees to the Pechanga community,” says Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, president and CFO of Lifescapes. “The acorns from oak trees have been essential sustenance for them since early times in California. Pechanga also wanted us to include a majority of drought-tolerant, desert-sensitive plant materials because it wanted the property to reflect its commitment to having at least a 60 percent to 75 percent sustainable landscape palette.”
Lifescapes, in collaboration with Delawie Architects and Planners, also created the casino’s 4.5-acre water complex, which features a drought-tolerant roof garden, five pools, four spas, a beach-entry family pool with two water slides and a splash pad, and an outdoor cafe.
“The main pool is 7,600 square feet and features a swim-up bar with 18 submerged stools,” says Alvaro Amador, senior principal/project designer at Lifescapes. “There is also a ‘Baja ledge’ allowing guests a chance to wade in shallow water or dangle their legs over the edge or relax in one of the ‘floating’ daybeds.”
Garden Party
Through the years, Lifescapes has become synonymous with exquisite gardens. The firm’s secret: it “reinvents” simplicity through the use of color, volumes and depth, explains Davide Padoa, CEO of Design International, a London-based architecture firm with offices worldwide.
“Lifescapes works with these three aspects in mind, thereby creating a lot of layers in the picture,” says Padoa. “You always have a feeling of being immersed into deep spaces which are full of surprises—even if the area is very small. They know how to apply it very well, and they are not afraid of using a lot of color, so that transforms the project into a very natural, very mature environment. Once finished, it looks like it’s been there forever, but creatively curated at the same time.
“This is what I love about their designs. Lifescapes’ designs are eternal, beautiful, never trendy and always authentic.”
Such authenticity was one of the reasons global real estate giant Tishman Speyer asked Lifescapes to work its magic on the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center in New York City. Tishman was impressed by Lifescapes’ floral settings at the Bellagio’s Conservatory.
“The Channel Gardens feature six historic pools—each with a large fountainhead sculpture, designed by Rene Paul Chambellan,” says Dan Trust, ASLA and senior executive and COO of Lifescapes. “This is our third year designing themed garden displays around (and sometimes covering) the granite pools and fountains that are changed out throughout the year. It’s the perfect canvas for our team to create exceptional settings to delight and surprise guests. We are honored to be part of this unique and challenging project in New York City.”
Unlike at the Bellagio Conservatory, when Lifescapes had two to three days to swap out the gardens, the time frame is literally overnight at the Channel Gardens.
“When we change the gardens, we have from 9 o’clock in the evening until 6 o’clock the following morning to take away the previous garden and reassemble the new one,” says Adam Kober, Lifescapes principal and project designer. “It can be quite a puzzle. Precise timing is crucial as we must temporarily shut down a lane of Fifth Avenue. We work closely with Tishman Speyer’s garden crew to pull it all off successfully.”
Lifescapes has been wildly successful over the past six decades by adhering to the basics. Lifescapes brought back the heart and soul of the community by providing “destinations within a destination”—an active gathering place that goes back to the Souk in Byzantine, the Agora in Greece, and the Forum in Rome.
The firm incorporates into their designs—with, of course, much newer technology—a gathering place where the community interacts, something many real estate developers feel has been neglected for far too long.
“The key to creating successful outdoor landscape environments is making them interactive, experiential and beautiful—not just a static vision, but a vibrant place that welcomes you, energizes you and engages you,” emphasizes Brinkerhoff-Jacobs. “What’s unique about Lifescapes is that we know how to create a beautiful space that draws people in to have a meaningful, long-lasting memory—one that’s being made at the moment people are experiencing it, and actively immersed within it.
“For us, it all started in Las Vegas with the Mirage. Luckily, some things really shouldn’t—and haven’t—just stayed in Las Vegas!”
