Circa owner Derek Stevens talks about the creation of his new resort. By: David McKee

Derek Stevens didn’t exist, Las Vegas would have to invent him. The Detroit native, along with his brother Greg, has been building up a casino empire in the Downtown area of Las Vegas for almost 15 years. Rather than come in and trying reinvent the casino business all at once, Stevens entered quietly and observed the area, first as owner of the Golden Gate (Las Vegas’ oldest extant casino), then swooping up when Fitzgerald’s went bankrupt, rebirthing it as the highly popular The D (an allusion to the Stevens’ home town).