Vegas for the hip, without the Strip

THE Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa is about 10 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip in Summerlin, “the No. 1 master-planned community in the United States.” I don’t know what the master plan is exactly, but it looks diabolical: upscale exurbia reduced to its barest essence. There are Starbucks, Borders, Linens ‘n Things and now, a brand-new, billion-dollar entertainment complex done in high hipster style.

It beats the Strip, anyway. We -- the Reluctant Traveling Companion and I -- are not big Vegas fans. In fact, the RTC has expressly forbidden me to call it “Vegas” because to call it Vegas is “to buy into the bogus corporate mythologizing of the whole thing.” I’m with him. But I’m also lazy.

The resort, though, held non-Vegas promise, located not just off-off-the Strip but also close to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, a majestic and pristine desert preserve.

Designed with a wink and nod to the ‘50s and ‘60s, and an elbow to the ribs of the ‘90s (when everything old became new again except not really), Red Rock has a style that could be described as midcentury Modernism with a thyroid problem. It’s enormous but by local standards elegant, low-key and even boutique-y. (Still under construction, it will grow from 414 rooms to 850 and add a shopping mall and several new restaurants by December.)

Unlike the irradiated mutant Roman senate, Venetian palace and Tuscan villa across town, the Red Rock uses curvilinear shapes and organic materials such as stacked red sandstone and paneled rosewood to integrate nature and incorporate recently demolished history.

On the inside, a dramatic lowered ceiling in the lobby evokes Frank Lloyd Wright and countless crystals hang in clever deconstructions of the traditional grand chandelier. Otherwise, it’s a reverent pastiche of late 20th century design tropes -- part Zen wellness retreat complete with fake wheatgrass sprouting from bento boxes, and part iPod-populist design temple.

Absorbing the aura

AFTER checking in one day this month, we take an amusing ride in an elevator. Like almost every niche of the resort, the elevator has a TV replaying a video in which an attractive woman scampers along the rocks at nearby Red Rock Canyon, then swan dives off the edge of a cliff.

The screen displays the caption “A place to feel alive,” but RTC remarks that the video actually suggests it’s “a place to end it all.” The woman, not dead, then emerges from a pool in a white bikini, a Steadicam trained on her top as she sashays over to a man with washboard abs. It’s all very yin-yang, and it got funnier every time we saw it.

Our room is pure bachelor pad. The walls are covered in a brown woven fiber, the bathroom is done in gray-and-white marble and brown leather. A 42-inch, high-definition plasma TV faces the king-size pillow-top bed. It’s hard to get up, even to check out the “intimacy kit” we dare not open lest a hefty $25 charge be incurred.

The hotel and casino are separated by a 3-acre “backyard” area with pools and decks, the nicest part of the resort. It’s studded with rattan lounge chairs topped with orange cushions, and speakers blare a hodgepodge of dance music, reggae and pop. Through a small space at one end, you can just glimpse Red Rock Canyon to the west.

One deck serves as the lounge for the T-Bones Chophouse. Others constitute a VIP pool section, which also has a row of cabanas in the go-go early-’60s style. Cabanas seem to have lost a little bit of their mystique in the intervening years, however, and now require plasma TVs.

T-Bones Chophouse and Terra Rossa, an Italian restaurant, are fully booked for Saturday night. So we make a reservation at Terra Rossa for Sunday and grab a seat at the T-Bones bar, where the full menu is served. We order steaks, which eventually arrive with a sprig of rosemary.

The place is packed, the wait is long, and the martinis are very good -- good enough to make RTC extend a chat with a middle-aged woman dining alone well past the point of amusement and conclude that he weeps for humanity.

We are, however, the soberest people on the poolside deck, once we get out there. It’s hard to put a finger, exactly, on the clientele. (The next day, we’ll take a stroll through the Wynn and notice it attracts a different sort of people -- the sort that don’t straddle their friends.) Not that the atmosphere isn’t lively; it’s just really drunk. So we decide to check out Cherry, a dance club from “nightclub impresario” Rande Gerber, who brought us L.A.’s Skybar, among others.

It is a decision we’ll regret. Blithely sauntering up to the door, we are told by an eye-contact-avoidant bouncer to get in line. It does not matter that we are hotel guests. While we stand next to chain-smoking women shoveling quarters into slot machines, VIPs keep sauntering in. After a while, I ask another bouncer what the holdup is. He says something highly doubtful about George Clooney.

I don’t learn the truth until we get inside an hour later. We squeeze through the packed club, which looks a little like the ship from “Alien,” and out onto the deck. We head for one of the comfy white poolside mattresses, only to be told by another bouncer (nicer, this time) that these and all other lounge chairs are reserved for VIPs. “What makes someone a VIP?” I ask. Making a reservation and paying up, apparently. I felt stupid for not reserving, but then, I’d assumed that as a key-flashing guest I’d get preference over people off the street -- as Mondrian guests do at Skybar. But no.

By then we have the clear sense that the Red Rock is all about the VIPs -- there are VIP elevators -- and we don’t have anywhere near the necessary self-esteem to social climb around here. (Rock climbing at Red Rock Canyon, on the other hand, can be easily arranged by the Adventure Spa.) It put me in mind of something philosopher Alain de Botton outlined in his book “Status Anxiety”: “exclusivity not based on class or money, but intimidation of style.”

In a way, the Cherry experience is the perfect capper to the trip: You’re not in Las Vegas until you can experience a simulacrum of an actual experience (annoying L.A. nightclub). From what RTC and I could tell, Cherry is frequented by lots of people in chinos and girls on bachelorette weekends. Two hours, a $20 cover charge and two $9 drinks later, we go to bed.

The next day we get up bright and early for a guided hike at Red Rock Canyon, which we miss. No matter. The visitors center has lots of maps, and we take a lovely hourlong hike of the Calico Hills, where a teenager hiking with her parents wears a T-shirt that reads “Die Hipster Scum.”

We spend the next few hours by the pool, struggling mightily to flag down a waiter and nap through the blaring dance music. In the VIP section, hipsters frolic. The park keeps calling out, so later we do the 13-mile scenic drive of the canyon, hands down the best part of the trip.

Hitting a stride

MAYBE it’s the more relaxed Sunday vibe, but everything seems better after that. Back at the hotel, we pop into the spa (treatments run from about $30 for brow waxing to $235 for the Mega Body Shebang) and tour the fabulously swank red-and-white salon. We discover a lap pool off the fitness center that has mattresses and no club music.

At the beautifully designed Lucky Bar, the friendly bartender comps our drinks and the chandelier is a thing to behold. Dinner at Terra Rossa is another high point, the food good and the service excellent. It is the first time all weekend that we feel like grown-ups, and we savor it with a fond look back at that teenager in the T-shirt, wondering how her anti-establishment impulses will be co-opted in the future.

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Off the Strip, but still on the mark

GETTING THERE:

From Los Angeles it is 270 miles to Las Vegas; the drive in light traffic takes about 4 1/2 hours.

Nonstop flights to Las Vegas are plentiful from Southern California. From LAX, American, America West, United and Southwest fly nonstop. From Burbank, only Southwest flies nonstop. From Long Beach, only JetBlue does. Southwest and America West fly from Ontario, and America West also flies from Orange County. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $99.

WHERE TO STAY:

Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa, 11011 W. Charleston Blvd., Las Vegas; (702) 797-7777 or (866) 767-7777, www.redrocklasvegas.com. New off-the-Strip resort from Station Casinos, creators of Green Valley Ranch, has high hipster style but a more varied crowd. Rooms from $129-$425. Suites, $750.

WHERE TO EAT:

T-Bones Chophouse at Red Rock, (702) 797-7576 for reservations. Popular steakhouse with good meat and martinis. A huge illuminated marble dominates the large room. Make sure to take a walk past the fiery fish tank. Everything is priced a la carte. Entrees $19-$145.

Terra Rossa at Red Rock, (702) 797-7576 for reservations. Bright, spacious, generic Tuscan-style decor and excellent service. Pizzas, pastas and other Italian fare. Entrees $12-$38.

WHAT TO DO:

The Spa at Red Rock has traditional body treatments like massages and facials, and an “adventure spa” menu. The latter arranges activities, including hiking, rock climbing and horseback riding. The fitness center offers free classes as well. Reservations (702) 797-7878.

Cherry, the dance club, is packed with loud and sweaty singles, especially on weekends. A reservation (and extra fee) helps get you in the door and take a seat. More low-key are the resort’s other bars, particularly the lounge called Lucky Bar. Information: (702) 797-7180. For table reservations, contact a VIP coordinator at (702) 860-2759 or (702) 423-3112.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is about a 10-minute drive from the resort, and the best part of staying west of the Strip in the Summerlin neighborhood. Passes are $5 per vehicle. Information on hikes and other programs: (702) 515-5367, www.redrockcanyonlv.org.

-- Carina Chocano