I flew in tonight to the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport for our South Florida real estate conference here tomorrow. The venue is the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood in Hollywood, Florida, a smoky slice of Vegas in an otherwise boring part of the Sunshine State. You can see the hotel rise a half-mile out on the Ronald Reagan Turnpike, sprawling tall and spotlit gleaming white. Three toothless turrets jut up from the structure, lending a palatial air. Out back in a thicket of palm trees is a massive pool that I saw not a single person use. An island plunked in the middle is accessible by footbridge and features waterfalls, waterslides and the sorts of thatched-roof bars that serve drinks festooned with skewered fruit and tropical flowers.
I had been joking that I wanted to get my photo taken with Meat Loaf’s jacket, but inside, the hotel has seemingly every outerwear garment but the Loaf’s, displayed on headless mannequin torsos behind glass. I saw concert-costume jackets belonging to Prince, Aerosmith, Cher, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, the Yardbirds and James Taylor. John Lennon was represented by a pair of boots from the early years of the Beatles. Strangely, no jacket of Elvis’ was in the house, only a pair of ripped corduroy pants, for which I had no time to read the explanatory placard. I assume they were from one of his movies or perhaps the end of his life when he let himself go, gorging on fried food and amphetamines.
The rooms of the hotel are decked out in a lot of sexy halogen lamps and the clothes hangers and room service menu are upholstered in faux leopard fur. Snippets of song lyrics are printed on various items. My extra roll of toilet paper, for instance, was wrapped with a paper band printed with Steve Winwood’s “roll with it, baby.” My room didn’t contain any rock-star memorabilia but my TV was flanked by a framed black-and-white photo of Bruce Springsteen rocking the mike with Lil’ Steven and one of that guy from Cheap Trick with the five-necked guitar.
December 7, 2006 Update: Per an MSN Money article this morning, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which operates the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, is paying $965 million to buy the entire Hard Rock business (except the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel & Casino), which includes a chain of 124 Hard Rock Cafes, four Hard Rock Hotels, a pair of Hard Rock Casino Hotels and one of the largest collections of rock memorabilia.