After working together for more than three decades on some of the world\u2019s most recognizable casino resorts, Tony Marnell and architect David Howryla are entering a new chapter.<\/p>\n
The two officially formed Marnell Howryla Architecture last fall, positioning the firm to carry one of Las Vegas\u2019 most influential design legacies into the future.<\/p>\n
The partnership formalizes a relationship that began in 1994, when Howryla joined Marnell Companies as a young architect. Since then, the pair has helped shape projects including Bellagio, Wynn Las Vegas, M Resort and resorts around the world.<\/p>\n
Marnell said the partnership represents the next chapter of his company\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt combines strong leadership with outstanding talent to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation, creativity and dedication in every project we deliver,\u201d Marnell said.<\/p>\n
The firm has about 60 architects and designers.<\/p>\n
Five-decade legacy<\/p>\n
With a legacy spanning more than five decades, Marnell has been responsible for designing and delivering some of the most iconic projects on the Las Vegas Strip and beyond, including Rio, The Mirage, Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Wynn Las Vegas and more. The company\u2019s portfolio also extends to major hospitality, entertainment and commercial developments worldwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work for customers who operate buildings that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week,\u201d Marnell said. \u201cThey\u2019re like a hospital. In a way, we\u2019re like doctors. People call us for open-heart surgeries. They call us for plastic surgery. They call us for all kinds of things. And they have their ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howryla\u2019s favorite building may not even be a casino \u2013 it\u2019s the corporate Marnell Companies complex where they maintain their offices and the design magic happens on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
Marnell Companies is a rare entity that not only provides the architecture, but also the interior casino design, construction and management services. That front-to-back strategy has been something that has served Marnell\u2019s companies well, Glenn Nowak, an associate professor at UNLV\u2019s School of Architecture, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey definitely know casinos are integrated resorts inside and out,\u201d said Nowak, who worked for Marnell before launching his 20-year career as an educator at UNLV.<\/p>\n
Comfortable environment<\/p>\n
Nowak said designing a casino property is a science to make sure patrons are comfortable within their environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of establishes the organizing structure of how you move through the entire resort, and I think they understood how to connect it and how to connect all the other things through the casino,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say how disorienting or how you get lost in casinos, but really, for those that visit, even just a couple of times, you can begin to associate,\u201d Nowak said. \u201cI see at the far end, we\u2019ve got the fill in the blanks, either the movie theater or this destination restaurant or that direction to the shopping, and the casino becomes a kind of wayfinding device. Perhaps at first glance, it looks and feels like it\u2019s a sea of chaos, but really there\u2019s subtle cues that get designed in that kind of help people understand, \u2018Oh yeah, this is the way back to the hotel tower, the elevator, the lobby.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That, Nowak said, is what makes Marnell and Howryla good at what they do.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that had always stuck with me after working with Marnell for a couple of years was just how they would really put themselves in the guest\u2019s shoes,\u201d he said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t casino design specific, but it\u2019s resort design specific. And they would think about, like, \u2018Oh, you don\u2019t want to bring your suitcase after you\u2019ve checked in at the lobby desk.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked which Las Vegas resorts best illustrate thoughtful casino design, Nowak pointed to Cosmopolitan, M Resort and Durango, saying each succeeds for different reasons.<\/p>\n
Cosmo design<\/p>\n
He named The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas as one of his favorites because \u201cthey\u2019ve organized much of what you would find in every other resort on a much smaller footprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelatively speaking, it\u2019s a smaller site than Caesars or Bellagio. And so they stack a lot of things vertically,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Marnell and Howryla say that in all their years together, they\u2019ve never had a dispute, which can be challenging when a client asks them to offer features on a project that they believe wouldn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how you learn,\u201d Marnell said. \u201cYou know, you don\u2019t learn from your successes as much as you learn from \u2014 I don\u2019t want to call them failures, but things that could have done better. We know how to do it better now than having done it once. And you know, remember, we\u2019re in it with our clients. We make big commitments, billion-dollar commitments to people. And we take them seriously. In all these years, we\u2019ve never been over budget and we\u2019ve never been late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marnell likened working with clients on projects as a dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s give and take. It\u2019s a dance. And we don\u2019t really know what dance this particular one\u2019s going to be. Is it going to be a tango? Is this going to be a waltz? That\u2019s the fun of it. That\u2019s the magic of it that we try to produce for them (clients).\u201d<\/p>\n
Howryla said the work involved in dancing with clients is what leads to a successful project and that provides value to the customer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a collective energy to get the best value. Some of the decisions along the way are based on saving a penny now, but it ends up costing you a dollar later. I think that\u2019s the key as I look back on a project. I should have done this or that instead of what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marnell said one of his most enjoyable projects over the years was the design, construction, building and management of the Rio, now owned by Dreamscape Companies LLC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was baptism by fire,\u201d Marnell said. \u201cI think some of the initial success there was that it was a food renaissance. We had 26 restaurants, I think, in the end. We served 20,000 meals a day. That was more than 30 years ago, but it showed us how much food could influence a project. We\u2019ve probably done maybe a dozen of every one of those different kinds of restaurants in the last 30 years. There wasn\u2019t a restaurant anybody\u2019s ever thrown at us that we haven\u2019t built and fooled with, so we know our way around restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next for the Marnell-Howryla team?<\/p>\n
Because the partners adhere to strict ethical constraints, they won\u2019t talk about upcoming projects, particularly those in which they\u2019re under contract with another developer.<\/p>\n
Marnell believes the company\u2019s future now rests with the next generation of designers, including Howryla and, soon, Howryla\u2019s daughter Kelsey, who recently graduated from Cal Poly-San Luis Obisp and will join the firm after years as an intern.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s our next superstar,\u201d Marnell said.<\/p>\n
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com<\/a> or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After working together for more than three decades on some of the world\u2019s most recognizable casino resorts, Tony…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-582269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}