Wayne Newton moves back to longtime home, gets his own Graceland after all

When last Yahoo Homes checked in on the saga of Wayne Newton and Casa de Shenandoah — his Las Vegas home for nearly 50 years — grand plans for a Graceland-style museum had fallen apart. He and his family had moved out, believing they'd never be back. The estate was on the market for $30 million, having been marked down by $40 million.

But dreams never really die, do they?

The Newtons have returned to their mansion and menagerie ("We have monkeys. We have penguins. We have wallabies. We have peacocks") after the resolution of a legal situation that went on for years. The legendary entertainer tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "What we have done, the entire property is ours. We've leased it for more years than I'll ever see, and with the right and predetermined figure, which I can't go into, should we decide that we wanted to buy it back, that's the figure and it's a done deal."

The Las Vegas Sun is a little more specific: "Newton's return to Shenandoah is foremost a business agreement." Lacy and Dorothy Harber are majority owners of the property through a limited liability corporation called CSD, which was formed six years ago to buy Casa de Shenandoah for a Newton museum. They had a falling-out with the Newtons during some legal nastiness involving a property manager, but last fall, the two couples made amends and agreed to "take one more shot at building something special," Wayne Newton said.

And now it's open to the public. Tours start at $35.

The Sun cautions that "the viability of his museum, in today’s Las Vegas, is hardly a certainty," pointing out that a Liberace museum went under a few years back, and "even Elvis isn't a sure thing in Las Vegas." But Newton is optimistic. "It happens to all of us, but the difference between Casa de Shenandoah and Graceland, for that comparison, is that I am still here." Click here or on a photo for a slideshow of Wayne Newton's Las Vegas home of nearly 50 years, Casa de Shenandoah.

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