Jenna and Michael Morton’s Summerlin home has a 60-foot outdoor slide, a DJ booth and a wine room that holds hundreds of bottles.
3 min
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
Jenna and Michael Morton have created some of the best-known nightclubs and restaurants in Las Vegas.
But when building a home in the area for their family, they veered away from the glitzy excess of the Strip in favour of a calming, desert retreat.
That’s not to say entertainment was an afterthought: The roughly 2-acre property in the Summerlin neighbourhood has a 60-foot outdoor slide and a DJ booth.
“We are in Las Vegas,” Jenna said. “It’s part of what we do in this town. We do fun.”
Now, after about 20 years of fun, the Mortons’ three children are out of the house, and they are listing the home for $19.5 million.
Michael is a son of Chicago restaurateur Arnie Morton, who founded Morton’s The Steakhouse, which has more than 50 locations nationwide.
His brother Peter Morton co-founded the Hard Rock Cafe, and Michael and Jenna operate restaurants including Crush at the MGM Grand and La Cave Wine and Food Hideaway at Wynn Resorts .
The couple paid $1.25 million for the vacant Summerlin site in 2003. At the time, they were living in Chicago but planning to move to Las Vegas to be closer to their work.
Located in the Ridges, a gated community about 15 minutes from the Strip, the property is at the end of a cul-de-sac abutting the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
“The first time we were there, there were wild burros behind us,” Michael said.
The single-story house spans about 9,400 square feet and curves toward the canyon for privacy and mountain views.
“The curve is an embrace of the mountains,” said Jenna during a video call as she walked outside, the vista framing her face.
In contrast to the over-the-top vibe of Las Vegas hotels and casinos, the couple’s aesthetic at home is what Jenna described as “Japan meets desert,” with clean lines and neutral colours.
The house has seven bedrooms; the primary bath has a soaking tub made out of a boulder.
A wine room has colour-changing Lucite pegs that hold hundreds of bottles. A separate, roughly 530-square-foot guesthouse has a roof deck.
The property is mostly flat, with the exception of a sloped section where the Mortons built the tiled slide, which drops into the pool.
“I looked at it and said, ‘There will be a slide on that hill,’” Michael recalled. It isn’t just children who have enjoyed it—he and Jenna and many of their friends have taken a turn. “A lot of adults hit that slide,” he said.
The Mortons said they entertained frequently, from fundraisers to a birthday party where their son filled an outdoor trampoline with bubbles.
For Jenna’s 40th birthday, the couple hosted a 1960s-themed party that began with a 200-person sit-down dinner, followed by toasts and karaoke.
Michael enlisted the rock band Cheap Trick to make a surprise appearance during karaoke.
As Jenna took the microphone and started belting out their song “I Want You to Want Me,” the band began playing behind her. “We took the rods out of the reactor that night,” he said. undefined
Although selling is bittersweet, the Mortons said they want something smaller now that their children are grown.
The couple—he is 61, she is 59—have a second home in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and they plan to build a smaller house in Las Vegas.
The luxury market in Las Vegas has exploded over the past few years, said listing agent Kristen Routh-Silberman of Douglas Elliman.
There were 76 sales in the Las Vegas area above $10 million in 2025, up from 59 a year prior, she said. The record is held by a home at the Summit Club that traded for $35 million in 2024.
A recent building boom means inventory is finally catching up to demand, according to Routh-Silberman.
The spring market has started early this year, and there seems to be more activity thanks to demand from California and Washington transplants seeking tax advantages, she said.
The Australian leather house has opened an immersive four-day pop-up in Manhattan, unveiling its Bloom Collection and redefining what a product launch can look like.
Following the successful launch of its Palais Collection, MAISON de SABRÉ has unveiled a new modular handbag system offering more than 720 styling combinations.
The US housing market remains under pressure as high mortgage rates continue to weigh on affordability and demand. Industry leaders say 2026 has been one of the toughest years for home sales, with slower price growth, weaker mortgage activity, and fewer buyers entering the market. However, experts say reduced competition and more price cuts could create opportunities for well-prepared buyers.
2 min
The typically busy spring season for the housing market was a dud, and the summer isn’t looking much brighter.
Housing services companies like Zillow Group and Rocket RKT +3.78% were loud and clear last week on earnings calls: Rocket CEO Varun Krishna called the quarter through June “one of the toughest spring housing markets in years.”
Jeremy Hofmann, Zillow’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the company predicted earlier this year that the market for mortgages would be flat. “We actually now think it’s going to be down low-to-mid-single digits,” he said.
The rest of 2026 will remain challenging for mortgage origination volume, says KBW analyst Bose George. The question now is what happens in 2027. “If mortgage rates remain [around] 6.75%, I think that’s going to be challenging even for next year,” he says.
But what’s bad news for mortgage companies could be a positive for bargain hunters. Buyers can expect prices to grow more slowly—or mildly decline—with less competition as long as mortgage rates remain unpredictable.
Mortgage rates at the beginning of the year were solidly below year-ago levels, notes Zillow senior economist Kara Ng. But they surpassed last year’s levels recently, she adds, referencing Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of 30-year fixed mortgage rates. Last week’s reading, at 6.69%, was higher than year-ago levels for the first time in 2026.
“From the affordability point of view, it’s going to get more challenging in the second half of the year,” she says. “And when affordability gets more challenging, that impacts sales and home price appreciation.”
Mortgage application data tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association has cooled since the beginning of the year. The trade group expects that the number of mortgage originations in the remaining two quarters will lag behind last year’s levels, after exceeding 2025 levels in the first half.
Rocket’s early-stage data—which the company told Barron’s it derives from its brokerage Redfin, demand for its mortgage products, and signs in its servicing portfolio that a homeowner is preparing to refinance or move—“leads us to expect the third quarter mortgage market to be smaller than the second,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown, said on the company’s call. He added that such an occurrence is “something the industry has not seen since 2022.”
Prices will be about flat nationally, Ng says. Zillow’s most recent forecast, which shows how values are expected to change in the year ending June 2027, show them dropping in roughly half of the 100 largest U.S. metros for which data is available.
Buyers aren’t rushing in at a time when mortgage costs are rising and unpredictable. But those with the right combination of patience and cash could stand to benefit. “If you are financially qualified to buy a starter home, you are facing less competition and you’re more likely to get a price cut,” Ng says.
