has owned the Sahara, Pioneer, Hacienda and other properties, including the Santa Fe Casino, which they opened in 1991 before being bought by Station Casinos in 2000. Some background: Lowden is the son of casino magnate Paul Lowden, whose Archon Corp. “I said, ‘Are you (expletive) with me? Do you not know?’ ” Lowden recalls with a laugh. It all began with a phone call whose recollection elicits a chuckle.Ī little over a year ago, Santa Fe Station General Manager Brent Arena dropped a line to Lowden, asking him if he’d ever thought about opening a club in a casino. “We wanted to do something a little bit more upscale, less kitschy than Stoney’s on the Strip,” he adds. “We like to call it Western industrial,” Lowden says of the decor through a salt-and-pepper beard, tattooed forearms poking out of his shirtsleeves. There’s a bar built into the back of a small horse trailer and assorted games in the open-air space, which also features louvers that can open and shut depending on the weather.īack inside, the room is a mix of chic and rustic, polished glass and weathered steel.

We stroll across the floating dance floor to a 3,000-square-foot patio outside whose dominant feature, a massive, see-through glass fireplace, will be installed later. “Got a go-go cage there - and two on the stage,” he says, pointing to spots in the room where the aforementioned features will be located. The owner of Stoney’s Rockin’ Country is surveying his newest digs, Stoney’s North Forty in Santa Fe Station, as workers put the finishing touches on the bar and nightclub. “Those come from Bali,” Chris Lowden notes of the skulls. Assorted steer skulls adorn the walls above the elevated VIP area. It gleams above the dance floor, not far from a large metallic sculpture of a cow made from - among other things - handcuffs, padlocks and monkey wrenches, like something that came from an artisanal scrap yard.Īn iron statue of a pompadoured cowboy wrangling a bucking bronco looms nearby. Baskow/Las Vegas Review-Journal) the armadillo-shaped disco ball awaits. A Longhorn steer art piece as part of the new Stoney's North Forty country club coming to Santa Fe Station on Thursday, Sept.

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