Kansas City, Kan. – Steve Beaumont has built a fantasyland for couples on the Kansas prairie.
Chateau Avalon is a luxury hotel with 24 themes in its 62 rooms, although Beaumont likes to call them “experiences.”
The Tahitian has two 8-foot Easter Island heads, a palm tree, a bed draped in mosquito netting and a jetted bathtub under a thatched roof.
Walk into Camelot, and there’s a suit of armor between two flaming sconces, a ship cradling a bathtub and a drawbridge leading to a bed inside a turret.
Serengeti has a rhino head bursting through the wall.
“This is our most expensive room,” Beaumont said as he led the way into the three-story Monte Cristo. “It’s $499 a night, and booked every Saturday through October. Probably every Friday too.
“But even the rooms that go for $99 a night on weekdays are like something that nobody has ever seen. This isn’t a hotel – this is entertainment.”
Monte Cristo has tapestries on the walls, a fountain in the living room, and a winding stone stairway leading to a bed. The top level has a tub fit for a count surrounded by columns.
Other “experiences” include Pirates’ Cove, Jesse James Escape, Egyptian Palace, Mayan Rainforest, New York Penthouse and Roman Dynasty. The bedroom in Presidential is hidden behind a secret door in the library. Colorado Frontier has a gas fireplace beside a twig bed nestled inside a cabin.
Architect Jory Waller, who worked at the megahotels in Las Vegas, helped design each of the rooms.
“That’s what we wanted to do,” Beaumont said. “Bring the glitz of the casinos into our rooms.”
Some of the columns, balustrades and crown moldings used in the rooms were made from casts used at Caesars Palace and the Venetian in Las Vegas. “You just can’t go into your Sears catalog to find this,” Beaumont said.
Each room comes with a flat-screen TV, surround-
sound systems, a champagne bucket with a bottle of Avalon cider next to a two-person jetted tub, and breakfast in bed, featuring a hot cinnamon bun. Two fountains are under construction out front, including one that Beaumont calls the “engagement” fountain.
“I’ve even got it planned to have a pad right here for a guy to take a knee,” he said.
The hotel is the newest addition to the growing Village West district, which already is the most popular travel destination in Kansas. At the intersection of interstates 435 and 70, the district is about a 30-
minute drive from downtown Kansas City.
The development began with the opening in 2000 of the Kansas City Speedway. That was followed by Cabela’s sporting goods store, Great Wolf Lodge, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Community America Ballpark.
The Legends, an 805,000-
square-foot open-air retail destination offering specialty stores and a variety of entertainment and dining venues, is scheduled to open this fall.
“It all sprang up from nothing on the prairie,” Beaumont said. “Like a mirage.”
www.chateauavalon.net.
