There's a new must-do in Las Vegas: a nighttime trip on High Roller, the world's highest Ferris wheel. Topping out at 550 feet, High Roller offers a spectacular view of Vegas' famed strip, flashing in neon and buzzing with frenetic energy. From that high up, you see the spectacle without noise and crowds — a megawatt masterpiece far below.

It's a delicious but fleeting feeling. That is, unless you live in one of three penthouse condos at the top of the 560-foot-tall Mandarin Oriental hotel. It's the same panorama as the High Roller, but from a significantly better vantage point. Look south out the bedroom window: There's the boxy Tropicana tower, the "wings" of the MGM Grand glowing emerald green. Look there: It's New York, New York, with its Manhattan skyline in miniature, and the Disney-esque castle of Excalibur. Now look north, out the kitchen window. There's the Eiffel Tower at Paris, and its Montgolfier balloon, lit in blue and yellow. And, oh yes, there's the High Roller, putting on its nightly LED light show "There are only a handful of condos in Vegas with views like this," says Bruce Anderson, principal at Anderson Environmental Design in Las Vegas.

Anderson should know. Not only does he live on the Strip, in the sleek, Helmut Jahn–designed Veer Towers, but he's helped design interiors for some of the most significant properties in Vegas, including the Wynn, the Encore, the Bellagio, the Palazzo, Caesar's Palace and Mandalay Bay.

Anderson is pleased with the finished product, but a little sad to lose his access to the view. "If I lived here, I don't think I'd ever watch TV. I'd just sit back and watch the Bellagio fountains. They put on a water and light show every 30 minutes, and you can see it all” right from the living room window."

A year ago, Martin Zapp of Las Vegas–based KNB Associates approached Anderson with a proposal. Zapp had a client who had purchased three shell (unfinished) penthouse condos at the ultraluxe Mandarin Oriental. Did Anderson want to finish them for sale?

"My vision was, get the best guy in Vegas to do the interiors, and just let him do his magic, carte blanche," says Zapp.

Pedigreed products

Anderson set out to make the three condos a showplace of residential design and innovation. He partnered with top brands, including Kohler, Wolf, Sub-Zero, Roche Bobois, Lutron, Poggenpohl and Sherwin-Williams, to select from their very best offerings. As a result, top residential designers and product reps from around the country have toured the three penthouses to see what it's like when you mix ultrahigh-end furnishings and finishes with a sublime locale. And when Anderson says "high-end," he means it. Every fixture, every light switch and lamp is absolutely the crème de la crème. There's rare Turkish Black Magic marble in the shower. There's a Roche Bobois Astrolab table that extends using a system of visible gears, like a Swiss pocket watch. There are glass sculptures by none other than Dale Chihuly.

At the same time, nothing gets in the way of that view. Take the kitchen in Anderson's favorite of the three penthouses. Serious luxury is happening here: German-made matte lacquer Poggenpohl cabinetry, textured Matrix granite counters, touchless Kohler faucets. A glass, stainless steel and porcelain-coated cast-iron Wolf cooktop with five dual-stacked sealed burners with LED-backlit controls. An M-series Wolf double oven with nine cooking modes. And a Sub-Zero wine chiller with two temperature zones and space for 46 bottles.

Even with all that eye candy, when you walk into the kitchen at nighttime, you see nothing but Vegas. Your eye immediately goes out the north-facing window, to the Strip below, lit up like a slot machine during payout.

"That's the money shot," says Anderson. "The view is why people pay the big bucks."

Anderson's secret to muting the kitchen's glamour and letting the Strip steal the show? Color — a sophisticated neutral palette that supports without calling attention to itself. The Poggenpohl cabinets are a subtle gray. For the walls in one unit, Anderson chose Sherwin-Williams Anonymous (SW 7046), a rich taupe, with Gray Screen for the tray ceilings. In another, he chose Aloof Gray (SW 6197) for the walls and Rare Gray (SW 6199) for the ceilings and pillars. In a third, the walls were done in Popular Gray (SW 6071) and the ceilings in Perfect Greige (SW 6073).

“This is one of those cases where, if you walk in and notice the paint color, you’ve done something wrong,” says Laurie Clark, a Las Vegas–based representative for Sherwin-Williams. “But that’s the magic of color, really: make it come alive, or make it disappear entirely.”

For the project, Anderson requested paint with a matte finish. "But I also wanted something soft, organic and dramatic," he says. Clark helped him select Emerald® Paint, a premium line introduced just two years ago. "This was an ultraluxe project that needed the Maserati of paint," says Clark.

"Emerald Paint is scrub-resistant and burnish-resistant, and it meets the most stringent VOC [volatile organic compounds] regulations."

Anderson says the paint achieved exactly the look he wanted. Plus, he says, "we had some of the best painters in Las Vegas do the work, and they raved to me about the quality."

By the rubric that matters most, Anderson did his job well. He's not 100 percent finished, but already the condos have generated A-list interest: a Hollywood actor and a top-shelf Vegas DJ. (Anderson says he knows the names of the potential buyers, but he's not spilling.)Anderson is pleased with the finished product, but a little sad to lose his access to the view. “If I lived here, I don’t think I’d ever watch TV. I’d just sit back and watch the Bellagio fountains. They put on a water and light show every 30 minutes, and you can see it all — right from the living room window.”

Sherwin-Williams colors used in the Mandarin Oriental penthouses:

Sherwin-Williams Perfect Greige (SW 6073)