Vegas’s New Heart Shaped Hotel Brings Back The 70s Poconos Resort Vibe

There is a fine line between campy and brilliant, and for decades, American romance culture walked it on a plush, red-carpeted tightrope. If you thought the era of mirrored ceilings, velvet-draped sanctuary rooms, and heart-shaped bathtubs was dead, think again. The ultimate symbol of 1970s kitsch is about to make a multi-million-dollar comeback—but this time, it is trading the quiet forests of Pennsylvania for the neon-soaked skyline of the Las Vegas Strip. Here is how a retro honeymoon haven paved the way for Sin City's wildest new heart shaped hotel.

Heart Shaped Hotel's Inspiration: The Legendary Cove Haven Resort

To understand the future, we have to look back at 1958. Two visionaries, Morris Wilkins and Harold O'Brien, bought a modest, 18-room Poconos getaway called the Hotel Pocopaupac. Renaming it Cove Haven Resort, they set out to build an empire entirely dedicated to couples-only escapism.

Wilkins quickly realized that people didn't just want a room; they wanted a fantasy. In 1963, he built the world's very first "Sweetheart Tub"—a heart-shaped bathtub for two. By the time Life Magazine featured it in 1971, Cove Haven became a global phenomenon. It was an era of uninhibited sexual liberation, and Cove Haven leaned into it with magnificent excess.

By 1984, to ward off cheap copycats, Wilkins pushed the boundaries even further by patented the Champagne Tower whirlpool suite. It featured a four-story layout, complete with a private indoor pool, a massage table, and a glass elevator that carried couples straight into a 7-foot-tall hot tub shaped exactly like a champagne glass. It was gaudy. It was beautiful. It defined an era of mid-century American romance.

But as the 1980s progressed, changing vacation tastes and cultural shifts pushed the Poconos boom into the history books. While Cove Haven proudly stands today as a living time capsule, the massive, towering scale of "heart-shaped" luxury seemed like a relic of the past. Until yesterday.

Las Vegas Says "The Heart Wants What It Wants"

If there is any city on Earth capable of taking a 1970s fantasy and super-sizing it for today, it’s Las Vegas. In a unanimous vote, the Clark County Zoning Commission officially approved a brand-new, jaw-dropping casino resort project slated for the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. The developer, Eli Applebaum of Kulik River Capital, purchased an 11.8-acre site directly across from Mandalay Bay for $70 million.

The site is notorious among Vegas locals. For over a decade, it sat as a desolate dead zone, marked only by two massive, unfinished concrete columns. These "matchsticks" were originally built in 2011 for the ill-fated SkyVue Ferris wheel project, which went bankrupt and left an eyesore on the boulevard.

Instead of blowing up the columns, Applebaum's approved plans will boldly resurrect them.

A Modern Nod to Vintage Romance

The centerpiece of the upcoming resort is a towering, 29-story hotel building built in the distinct shape of a heart. The central architecture features a massive heart-shaped glass curtain wall wrapped entirely in a vibrant, full-height LED display.

In a poetic twist of architectural recycling, crews will reinforce the old SkyVue Ferris wheel columns, add a third support pillar, and construct a 265-foot-high "sky venue" restaurant suspended mid-air right above the Strip. Below, guests will walk through a vibrant, covered pedestrian entertainment plaza designed to mimic the high-energy canopy of the Fremont Street Experience.

From the cozy, red-velvet rooms of Cove Haven in 1970 to a glass-and-LED mega-casino, the heart-shaped hotel has officially evolved. What once started as a modest 18-room getaway in Pennsylvania is being reborn as a multi-million-dollar monument to love, luck, and neon on the world's most famous boulevard.

Viva Las Vegas, and long live the retro romance!