Damien Hirst already has a pretty big presence in Las Vegas’s Palms Casino Resort. Take, for example, his 60 foot tall headless demon statue, Demon With Bowl, which will be the centrepiece in the new pool, or the preserved 13 foot tiger shark, or even the bespoke accessories he designed for the bar.
Now, though, the famed artist has moved onto designing an actual room at the hotel, which comes with views of the Vegas Strip (though first you’d have to peel your eyes away from the many original Hirst artworks dotted about the 9000-square-foot “sky villa”).
Of course, the room will only be for high rollers and the preposterously rich – it’s called the “Empathy Suite”, which is presumably tongue-in-cheek – costing a cool $200,000 for a minimum two night stay. That makes it one of the most expensive hotel rooms in the world.
It’s not as if you don’t get what you pay for, though. There are six original artworks in the suite, including Winner/Loser, two bull sharks suspended in two tanks of formaldehyde (Hirst’s favourite) set into the wall. There’s also plenty of Hirst’s butterfly motifs around and about, complementing his custom-designed furniture and small details such as carefully curated medicine cabinets and a 13-seat bar stocked with medical waste (because why not?).
The room itself has lounge and theatre areas that can fit 52 guests (which sounds like a nightmare), an outdoor jacuzzi with inlaid butterflies and pill imagery, and two massage rooms. $100,000 a night is definitely too much to pay for just one massage room.
Also, if you ever get tired of looking at Damien Hirsts, there’s always the rest of the resort’s artworks to explore, with pieces from Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Takashi Murakami, and Kaws.