There is a guy in the background between Grandpa and Grandma, that is my Uncle Jimmy, he was the Chef. It was a family affair. Auntie was restaurant hostess for Grandpa, and so was I when I was in town (I was young, but he let me!).

A chapter from the upcoming book "Just in Case I Become Famous":

Rat Packin’

By Mark Reasbeck

Vegas History

             Being “Connected” in Vegas, means only one thing,  Connected to the Mob. Later on I will go into my own “Connected-ness’ , but this part is about my Uncle Howard.

            Howard Werner was married to my dad’s older sister, Virginia, known  to us kids as “Aunt Ginny”.  They moved to Las Vegas in 1946 and the good uncle was an FBI agent.

Recent discoveries  produced some evidence that Uncle Howard may have gotten a girl pregnant back in Ohio , married her and “disappeared” the day after the wedding, and tracked down my Aunt Ginny and married her.  Apparently there is a Howard Werner Jr out there who never met the senior Werner.

Hmm, 1946.   the day after Christmas 1946 was the opening of the Flamingo Hotel  with Bugsy Siegel at the helm.  Did Uncle Howard  draw an assignment in Vegas to do a little Bugsy watch, I’m not sure?

            Somewhere between that time and when our family arrived on September 30, 1959, Uncle Howard, left the FBI and became a partner in Luigi’s Charcoal Broiler .   There was one at 32 Fremont Street but the one I remember   was just north of the Sands Hotel.  It was a windowless building with a rustic red cedar board and bat finish.  A gravel parking lot  greeted you when you pulled right up next to the building.  Inside, it was dark.  Dark wood paneling and of course red tuck and roll booths.  The traditional  black & white autographed photos lined the walls.  Uncle Howard boasted often that the “Rat Pack” would come over from the Sands Hotel after their Midnight show and have a private late dinner.

            The “Rat Pack” was the unlikely combination  of Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Sammy Davis Jr.   The “pack” would perform a basically improvised show at the Sands . This group of  alcohol charged , chain-smokers put Vegas on the Entertainment Map.

  After  the ” Flight of Our Life”, from the Pittsburgh Airport, we  were picked up in Uncle Howard’s yellow & white ’53 Chevy Bel-Air hardtop and Aunt Ginny’s ’55 white Oldsmobile Holiday  Hardtop and   taken to their modest home at 1600 Chapman Avenue, This  pre-war Huntridge cottage was our temporary home for  several days, while mom & dad looked for housing.   Uncle Howard had his hands in a lot of things.  He drove us by a piece of dirt with an old bunkhouse on it and eventually sold it around 1960.  The Jockey Club sits on it today where prices on the Strip sell by the square inch.  He also managed an apartment complex called the “Playpen Apartments” off of the strip.  These apartments were known to provide shelter for Nude dancers, cocktail waitresses, and Pit bosses.

Uncle Howard came a long way from the FBI days.  Within a year of our family  moving  to Vegas, he got involved in   designing  and building a “Jetson style” ultra modern house at 52 Country Club Lane , on  the Desert Inn Golf Course.    I  remember dad saying it was costing in the neighborhood of $100,000.  I wonder what that translates into today’s dollars?  The house had floor to ceiling  glass around the entire  back of the house,  a flat roof and multiple exposed beams , with a “crow’s nest” type room on the second floor  overlooking their pool and golf course greens.

  Growth is what Vegas is all about and growth was the demise of  the Luigi Dynasty. 

With the expansion of  Twain or Spring Mountain  Road, the Strip Location of Luigi’s was going to be bulldozed.  Uncle Howard decided to move the restaurant farther south to 3729 Las Vegas Boulevard . The building was previously  an Uncle John’s Pancake House and in 1962 0r 63 he broke ground for an extensive remodel for the new home of Luigi’s.  The transition was not good , Las Vegas was growing , and the old-timers were getting old. Consequently, I believe they closed the restaurant in the early 70’s.   Uncle Howard never did work again and relaxed another 18-20 years at 52 Country Club Lane.  He passed away in 1990 and Aunt Ginny right behind him in 1991.

            The relationship with my  mom & dad  and Howard & Ginny was strained at best.

The Werners did not have kids and dad had a handful.  Our visits to go swimming  at the Country Club  Lane home became fewer  because my parents didn’t like they way Aunt Ginny followed us around the house with a wet rag in her hand.   Dad said his kids shouldn’t have to go through that.  Later on, when I was married with   2 small boys, I gave up visiting when my wife and kids and myself spent 30 minutes on their  front porch on a hot summer’s day, never  offered a drink, or an invitation to come inside  out of the weather.

  I’m thinking  that Uncle Howard’s casket was full of information.