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Got a couple hundred grand lying around? If so, you could score some serious bragging rights by crashing in the new Empathy Suite designed by British artist and provocateur, Damien Hirst, at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
The new suite debuted on March 1, becoming the most expensive hotel suite in the US — and according to a spokesperson for the hotel, it may very well be the most expensive hotel suite in the world.
Up until now, the penthouse suite at the Mark Hotel on New York City’s Upper East Side held the title of America’s priciest, with a rate of $75,000 per night. The Empathy Suite at the Palms beats it by a cool $25,000. Plus, to book the room, a minimum two-night stay is required, making the price tag a minimum of $200,000.
Is any hotel suite worth $100,000 per night? If you — like us — have your doubts, keep in mind that the suite was designed by Hirst, whose over-the-top artworks regularly fetch prices in the tens of millions of dollars (and can be spotted at plenty of luxe hotels, like his 24-karat wooly mammoth skeleton sculpture at the Faena Hotel in Miami).
Hirst, who collaborated with Bentel & Bentel Architects, naturally filled the 9,000 square-foot suite with his own art. A medicine cabinet studded with diamonds and called “Vegas” stands at the entry, nodding to Hirst’s early “Medicine Cabinet” installation. Step into the living room and you’ll immediately be struck by “Winner/Loser,” a pair of bull sharks suspended in a tank filled with formaldehyde. His butterfly motifs are peppered on furniture throughout the suite, including in the bathroom and on the terrace, which features a pool cantilevered over the Strip. Suspended above a bar top filled with medical waste hangs “Here For a Good Time, Not a Long Time,” which comprises two vitrines containing a marlin skeleton and a taxidermy marlin.
If this sounds more disgusting than glamorous, well, you’re not alone. But you won’t just be sleeping with the fishes during a stay at the Empathy Suite.
The two-story villa also features two lavish bedrooms, a media lounge, two private massage rooms, a private healing salt room and a fitness center. It’s part of the resort’s $690 million top-to-bottom renovation. The Palms boasts one of the most extensive collections of blue-chip art of any hotel in the US, with pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol on loan alongside contemporary works by KAWS, Dustin Yellin, Takashi Murakami and other artists.
As you might expect, a suite with this high a price tag comes with some pretty sweet perks, including 24-hour butler service, chauffeured car service, a behind-the-scenes art tour of the hotel and the suite, A-list access to the property’s nightclub, Pearl Concert Theater and recording studio, as well as a $10,000 resort credit.
The Palms is owned by Station Casinos, so unfortunately you can’t leverage any existing hotel loyalty programs to earn elite-qualifying points or book a free stay there. You can, however, make the most of your extravagant trip to Vegas by charging the room to your Chase Sapphire Reserve for 3x (read: at least 600,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points). Another option? Use the Capital One Venture Rewards card for double miles, which can be redeemed as statement credits for travel purchases at rate of 1 cent per point. You’d earn 400,000 miles for the two-night stay, and could then redeem those miles for $4,000 off the purchase, bringing the price to a totally reasonable $196,000.
Oh, and if you’ve got a million dollar line of credit at the casino, you can crash at the suite for free.
Featured image courtesy of the Palms Casino Resort.
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