Liberace's Home Slipping Into Disrepair

I watched (or to be more-accurate, listened) to HBO's "Behind the Candelabra". Liberace was one strange fellow. But he had tremendous foresight and exercised great planning. In another circumstance, he could have been a great general.

I visited the Liberace Museum in 2009. I was very impressed at Liberace's vision. He loved to buy and own beautiful things, but he knew that beautiful things require diligent care to maintain (particularly keeping the dust off those costumes, and rebuilding them as old adhesives decayed with the years). So, Liberace set up his Foundation with a practically bomb-proof endowment and a steady stream of income from the nearby, leased stores, so that future generations of kids could love the same things he found so lovable - the costumes, the autos, the pianos, the statuary, etc. Where else in modern America could one find that kind of farsightedness; that kind of selflessness? On behalf of kids not even born?

Liberace's Museum was set up so well that nothing short of the Apocalypse could disturb it. Then the Apocalypse happened: The Big Recession. It hit Las Vegas hardest of all the cities in the United States. The recession revealed a small problem in Liberace's thinking. He built in the SE quadrant of the city, on Tropicana Blvd., which was where the real estate boom of the 60's and 70's was hottest, but in subsequent years, the big money headed NW, towards the mountains. So, he didn't anticipate that development. Wealth slowly ebbed from the area.  Also, his Museum was off the Strip, and without his actual presence it became harder and harder to attract tourists. So, the Foundation closed the Museum. They have plans to open storefront-type exhibits on the Strip in future years, to keep the glitz torch burning.