Harveys Lake Tahoe is a resort located in Stateline, Nevada. The hotel has 740 rooms and suites, as well as six restaurants, and a casino with 52,500 square feet of space. The hotel also has a wedding chapel, pool, convention center, and a full-service health club. History
Originally opened in 1944 and operated by Sacramento meat wholesaler Harvey Gross and his wife Llewellyn. They opened the first high rise tower, and 11-story 197 room hotel in 1961. The hotel suffered an explosion from a 1,200 pound bomb on August 27 of 1980 that left a crater three stories deep when detonated by the FBI. (The area around the hotel had been cleared, and no one was injured). The bomb was placed by John Birges, a heavily in-debt Fresno landscaper who had lost at least $750,000 at Harveys and was hoping to extort 3 million from the bomb threat. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1996 from liver cancer.
In 1983 Harvey Gross dies at the age of 78, however the company continued to operate under family management. In 1985 Harveys sells the Harveys Inn, northeast of stateline, reopens as Lakeside Inn. The 18-story $74 million dollar glass "Lake Tower" opened in 1987, the same year the trademark "Wagon Wheel" was replaced on the 11-story tower with the current Harveys brand. In early 1992, Harveys entered a bidding war with Hilton Hotels Corporation over the right to buy Bally’s Reno, which opened in 1978 as the MGM Grand Reno, now the Reno Hilton.
Harveys announced an agreement on a $70 million deal, only to see Hilton up the ante to $73 million and assumption of Bally's debt. Several weeks later, after considering even higher bids, a federal bankruptcy court settled the matter by approving Hilton’s final $83 million offer. After going public on Feb. 15, 1994 Harveys began new projects including a joint venture with Hard Rock America for an $80 million casino in Las Vegas, which it later sold it's interest in 1997, and then a casino resort in Central City, Colo., later in 1994, followed by a riverboat casino-convention center in Council Bluffs Iowa in early 1996. However in 1999 the Los Angeles-based Colony Capital LLC, a real estate investment firm, bought controlling interest in Harveys Casino Resorts and later was acquired by Harrah's Entertainment, announced on April 24th 2001, for 625 million.News
As of February 21, 2006 Variety reports that Nick Cassavetes has been signed on to write, produce and direct Bombing Harvey, a drama about the 1980 bombing to be distributed by New Line Cinema, the tentative release date is 2007.References and external links
- Harveys official site -
- Tahoe Daily Tribune -
- Reno Gazette Journal Story(25th anniversary of Harveys bombing) -
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