VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: You Can Rent Elvis’ Actual Las Vegas Penthouse

Posted on: June 23, 2025, 07:21h. 

Last updated on: June 25, 2025, 04:27h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Vegas Myths Busted.
  • The Westgate’s Imperial Sky Villa purports to be the suite Elvis called home from 1969-76
  • While built in some of the space once occupied by Elvis’ residence, the current suite was constructed 17 years after the King’s death

For a king’s ransom of $20 large a night, the Westgate will rent you the Imperial Sky Villa. That’s the newly renamed penthouse of the old International Hotel, which Elvis Presley called home while performing in Las Vegas.

The Imperial Sky Villa at the Westgate Las Vegas is an Elvis residence impersonator. (Image: Westgate)

“The new brand is a relaunch of the 13,200-square-foot fortress that has topped the tower since it opened as the International Hotel 1969,” John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on June 9.

Except that’s a hunka hunka burning crap.

The Building That Left Elvis

Top: A 1968 blueprint, with north facing upwards, shows the penthouse that would become Elvis’ in yellow. In blue is a former lounge, the Skyroom, part of which has been absorbed into the Imperial Sky Villa. (Click here for the full-sized blueprint.) Bottom: This aerial photo shows the three sky villas that were built over the demolished Elvis suite, whose footprint is again shaded yellow, most of which corresponds to the Imperial. (Images: Vintage Vegas/Martin Stern Jr. Architect & Assoc. and Google Earth)

The Imperial Suite (aka Room 3000) was where Elvis lived during his twice-yearly residencies in the hotel’s showroom from 1969-76. It measured only 5,000 square feet.

In the ’80s, the Hilton — which purchased the International from founder Kirk Kerkorian in 1971 — began referring to Room 3000 as “The Elvis Suite,” the name it placed on a brass plaque outside its front door. For the first time, regular customers were allowed to book it — not only headliners and high-rollers.

In 1994, the hotel chain decided to completely demolish the 30th-floor abode for the same reason every regrettable decision has ever been made in Las Vegas — the smell of more profit.

It was replaced, at a cost of $60 million, with three amenity-overloaded “sky villas” that increased the resort’s rentable penthouse space more than eight-fold.

The Tuscany (named after its decor) coincidedwith most of the footprint of Elvis’ original suite. On June 9, it was rebranded as the Imperial and festooned for the first time with Elvis photos in an attempt to capitalize on its historicity.

Except there isn’t any.

If the Imperial Sky Villa’s walls could talk, they would tell you they were built 17 years after Elvis died — along with its floors, ceilings, and windows.

Memories

The original Imperial Suite — whose windows faced northeast and southeast — featured opulent decor, including vibrant jewel-toned colors, gold finishes, plush carpeting, a grand white piano, and a large dining area.

Elvis threw post-concert bashes here attended by celebrity friends including Tom Jones, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Liberace.

He also hosted a famous February 1973 meeting here with Muhammad Ali, during which he gifted the champ with a custom-designed bejeweled boxing robe.

Muhammad Ali, wearing the boxing robe Elvis had just gifted him, tries his hardest not to knock out his new friend in the Imperial Suite. (Image: X)

Ali reciprocated by giving Elvis boxing gloves signed: “Elvis, You are the Greatest. From Muhammad Ali,” and by not knocking his new friend out when he busted out his karate moves for a photo op.

Multiple reports also placed at least one of Elvis’ infamous TV shootings inside the suite. The occasion was allegedly a 1974 Robert Goulet performance on “The Mike Douglas Show” that didn’t tickle Elvis’ fancy.

The suite was also the home in which he spent several weeks over the years doting on his daughter, Lisa Marie.

We like to think that none of those weeks overlapped with a TV shooting.

Heartbreak Hotel

Jutting toward the camera in this 1978 photograph, underneath the rooftop sign, are the windows of the Skyroom lounge and its restrooms. The windows of Elvis’ former bedroom and living room line the longer tower at right. The suite dead-ends where the sign does, into the empty space where most of today’s Imperial Sky Villa — including its pool — would be added 17 years after Elvis’ death.  (Image: Las Vegas News Bureau)

Alas, no specific portion of the Imperial Suite’s layout remains intact or identifiable.

The space where Elvis’ bedroom once stood, for instance, is now occupied by the Imperial Sky Villa’s living room.

And 8,200 square feet of new suite surround a pool that Elvis also never had.

Because of the decision by Hilton Hotels to convert this historic home into dust instead of an Elvis museum like Graceland, today’s wealthy time travelers must use their imaginations more than their eyes.

No matter how many Elvis photos line the wall.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit vegasmythsbusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.