The late great illusionists’ home is fated for the wrecking ball.
The palatial property the flamboyant German-American duo Siegfried & Roy called home isn’t long for this world, but pictures of it are certain to preserve its opulence in amber.
For more than three decades, Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn called a 100-acre Las Vegas estate their own. Nicknamed Little Bavaria, the decadent property is set to be demolished following the duo’s deaths — Horn’s in 2020, aged 75, from COVID-19 complications, and Fischbacher’s last year, aged 81, after a fight with terminal pancreatic cancer.
In its place, a 334-unit apartment complex is planned, the Daily Mail reports. The new building seems destined not to hold a candle to Little Bavaria with its aquatic park, private chapel and its celebrity-laced collection of relics — including a clock once owned by Napoleon, gifted gold candelabras from Liberace and a gem-encrusted sword said to once have been Genghis Khan’s.
The life partners and best friends maintained their own bedrooms but spent plenty of time together in the estate’s centerpiece: A Bavarian-style cottage, according to the Daily Mail.
“We have houses on each side, one for Roy and one for me. They are like two arms, wrapped around, and we meet in the middle,” Fischbacher once told Las Vegas Weekly in an interview.
In Siegfried’s bedroom, one wall was decorated with a mural of him, naked, holding chained cheetahs.
The pair were coy in terms of accepting their status as counterculture symbols. “Gay icons? For these people? Well, I am very honored,” Fischbacher told Vanity Fair in 1999. “In my life I have a lot of friends who are gay, and I made a lot of friends in show business, and I found out that they are always interesting, intelligent, and good people, and fun to be with. They are very open-minded. They are not narrow-minded. If I am an icon to them, it is wonderful, because gay people are always very loyal … And, you know, when you go back in history, there are great names in the arts and in every field, so be my guest.”
There’s a bell tower, a 10-car garage, miles of labyrinthine walkways and amenities for their pets, which included horses, black swans, tigers, turkeys, cranes and a variety of cats and dogs. These are luxurious by human standards, and other features include an Olympic-size pool and air-conditioned indoor areas.
