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by
Wendy
O'Dea  I
felt as if I was melting - my skin about to fall away and leave me stranded.
I
was lying on a massage table suspended over a tub-like basin as steam emanated
from beneath me and enfolded my pores, opening them up like flowers in springtime.
The room was bathed in a warm red light with new age music softly floating overhead.
I still recall the scent of eucalyptus and lavender as my face was slathered in
cool lotions and masks. My senses were boldly awakened, not only as a result of
this unique spa treatment called La Culla, but because I'd escaped to the
new found desert hideaway of Lake Las Vegas. Las
Vegas usually conjures up images of flashing neon, cheap buffets and smoky casinos.
That's why the inclusion of "Las Vegas" is a misnomer for this upscale
Mediterranean suburb, which sits within the Lake Mead National Park about 20 miles
from the Vegas Strip. Ron
Boedekker, the brainchild of this fancy enclave, had viewed the then stark desert
landscape on a flight from Los Angeles and saw a crater-size hole nearly 150 feet
deep in places.
"It occurred to me that if the hole was filled with water," he said,
"it would look like Lake Como in Northern Italy." It took five years
after turning on the spigot before that massive hole officially became Lake Las
Vegas. Surrounded
by brown and rose colored Nevada rock, Lake Las Vegas is both a lake and an upscale
community built around its shores. Two-miles long, it is the largest privately
owned lake in the Southwest and is part of the 2,600-acre Lake Las Vegas residential
and golf community. Six hundred private mansions and luxury homes (including Celine
Dion's) are perched on hillsides overlooking the water and two luxury resort hotels,
the Hyatt Regency and the brand new Ritz-Carlton, decorate the shoreline. It
was at the Ritz's Spa Vita di Lago ("Life of the Lake") that I surrendered
to La Culla. The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas is the only site in the U.S.
offering this two-hour multi-sensory massage, steam and facial originally pioneered
in Italy. After having nearly every muscle massaged, spritzed and steamed, I left
the spa as loose as a noodle and loafed around in my cushy robe, sauntering between
the hot tub and the Vichy rain shower.
(CONTINUE...)
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