HistoricSiteMarkers
Postwar & Contemporary

The Morelli House

Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada

Marker Inscription

The Morelli House. The Morelli House is a classic example of Las Vegas mid-century residential architecture.  It was built in 1959 by the Sands Hotel orchestra leader Antonio Morelli and his wife Helen.  Originally located at 52 Country Club Lane in the former Desert Inn Country Club Estates, now the Wynn resort, the modernistic house then featured an open plan that integrated interior and exterior spaces, natural materials, and the latest innovative home appliances.  In 2001, the Junior League of Las Vegas relocated the Morelli House to its present site and completed restoration in 2009.Listed 2001, Nevada State Register of Historic PlacesListed 2007, City of Las Vegas Historic Property RegisterThis historic preservation project was funded, in part, by the Nevada Commission for Cultural Affairs and through generous donations from the Las Vegas community and members of the Junior League.

Erected by Junior League Of Las Vagasthe Commission For The Las Vegas Centennial

The Story

Built in 1959 by Sands Hotel orchestra leader Antonio Morelli and his wife Helen, this home is a polished example of Las Vegas mid-century modern design — open-plan living that blurred indoors and out, natural materials, and the newest home appliances of the era. It originally stood in the Desert Inn Country Club Estates, a neighborhood later swallowed by the Wynn resort. In 2001 the Junior League of Las Vegas moved the house to its present site, completing restoration in 2009.

Why it matters

The Morelli House preserves the glamour and optimism of Las Vegas at its Rat Pack-era peak, a tangible link to the entertainers who built the city's postwar identity.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Antonio Morelli
  • · Helen Morelli

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Potosi

Clark County, NV

Seeking economic self-sufficiency, Mormon settlers turned to mining lead at Potosi in the late 1850s, when Nathaniel V. Jones was dispatched to work the “mountain of lead” southwest of the Las Vegas mission, though smelting troubles soon forced the remote mine to close—making it the first abandoned mine in Nevada. California interests reopened it in 1861, building a smelter and stone cabins for a hundred miners, and operations expanded further after the transcontinental railroad reached the county in 1905. During World War I, Potosi served as an important source of zinc.

Hoover Dam Memorial

Clark County, NV

Completed in 1935 across the Colorado River's Black Canyon, Hoover Dam was one of the greatest engineering feats of its age, built during the Great Depression to tame floods, store water, and generate hydroelectric power for the fast-growing Southwest. Thousands of workers labored in brutal desert heat to raise its massive concrete arch, and many died in the effort this plaque honors.

Winged Figures of the Republic (Hoover Dam)

Clark County, NV

These words accompany the Winged Figures of the Republic, the towering bronze sentinels that guard the great dam on the Colorado River at the Nevada–Arizona line. The inscription honors the visionaries who conceived the project — turning "lonely lands" into fertile, powered country — and the workers whose labor made it real during the 1930s. The dam remains one of the defining engineering feats of its age.

Eldorado Canyon

Boulder City, NV

Eldorado Canyon runs east to the Colorado River, and around 1859 prospectors began digging its slopes for gold and silver, organizing the Colorado Mining District. Its three great mines — the Techatticup, Wall Street, and El Dorado Rand — yielded more than six million dollars, while steamboats and barges freighted goods some 350 miles up from the Gulf of California to the canyon's mouth. In 1867 the U.S. Army planted an outpost here to guard the river freight and the miners; the mines revived in the 1870s and worked on until World War II.