Mohegan Sun
The Mohegan Sun Hotel and Casino is part nature and part modern complex. The structure sits alongside the river. Given its gargantuan size and based on the surrounding environs, you'd find it more appropriate for a log cabin to be sitting there. Instead, it looks like large blocks of granite and crystal has arisen from the ground in some cataclysmic global upheaval. The hotel is massive, truly massive but sitting in a sweet pasture as the river gently flows by.
My wife Margherita and I had driven up on I-95 from New York to basically the end of Connecticut. Connecticut is a state about two hours long, and the Mohegan Sun is essentially on the far end of the state, just near Rhode Island.
That larger-than-life, yet intimate, feeling pervades throughout the hotel/casino. Initially you sense that feeling when you walk into the lobby, which has a river flowing right down the middle into a waterfall running alongside the stairs. The lighting and ceilings are in the design of trees and caverns, while they still contain dozens of stores, clubs, restaurants, etc.
When we walked into the lobby, everybody's reaction was universally the same. Simply put, it's pretty and people notice it. Picture an imaginary line about six feet from the front doors. They see the lobby, which is designed to look like a forest and trees and right at that imaginary line, people stop and stare. "They really seem to know what they're doing," said Margherita with a quote that sounded a bit too influenced by marketing, but convinced me otherwise as I saw her jaw hang low.
The purpose of casinos is considered straightforward. Go gamble. Historically speaking, there was never much more to it than that. We decided to avoid tradition go to Mohegan Sun to get away... to run away... to hide away. Choose an escapist metaphor and that will be the sum result of the forthcoming story. Over the summer the Mohegan Sun had some specials, and every Wednesday they have these fireworks that they brag about. To me, it seemed an easy choice.
After wandering around the place it's not hard to see how the casino evolved into a resort complex. What's important about this evolutionary tangent is the new focus of the building. In the building's early history, the center of the building was the casino itself. Physically speaking, if you wanted to be in the geographic center of the building, you were somewhere near a slot machine. So not only was the structural focus different but also the psychological center. Now that it's a resort, the physical center seems to be this waterfall. In front of the waterfall is a beautiful glass structure made by Chihuly. Margherita was quite proud to have recognized a Chihuly from having seen one in San Antonio, but that's another tangent. Back to this architecture... basically, when the physical center changed from the casino to the newly added mall, hotel and resort so did the focus of the casino. Now it's an "everything under one roof" type of destination as opposed to simply a place to play the slots.
"Does this make you an art critic now?" I asked as she smiled.
Behind this structure and behind the waterfall is Todd English's Tuscany where we had dinner.
|
|||||
They had an olive tapanade on the table and calamari with a creamy/spicy sauce for an appetizer, but the culinary details are of no matter as compared to the ambiance. While you eat, the sounds of the running water from the waterfall drift all around you. Above are chandeliers and large, cavernous looking ceilings. Margherita wandered the restaurant "taking pictures of angles" as I ate the calamari.I mentioned that this was a getaway - and, in getting away, "it doesn't hurt to be somewhere that looks and smells pretty." This is a direct quote from Margherita that I thought was so endearing and yet accurate that I just had to repeat it.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3