{"id":330722,"date":"2024-09-16T15:44:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T20:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=330722"},"modified":"2024-09-17T19:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T00:08:21","slug":"lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/","title":{"rendered":"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound"},"content":{"rendered":"

About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote Pahrump, Nev., monuments to the still-syndicated daily radio show, \u201cCoast to Coast AM,\u201d that Bell founded in 1988.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The address of Art Bell\u2019s former house in Pahrump, 9041 Desert Lane, believed to be still owned by his family, has been changed to 2963 Desert Lane to discourage lookie-loos. However, the street number of his former radio station, at right, remains 9049 Desert Lane. (Images: Google Instant Street View, inset: Coast-to-Coast AM)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
The two adjacent radio towers have been powered off for decades and other residents have apparently made their own homes out of the two houses that once comprised Bell\u2019s broadcasting compound. But Bell remains a hero to everyone who has ever believed that the CIA murdered JFK, that the 9\/11 attacks were an inside job, and that alien abductions are real.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Bell didn\u2019t necessarily believe all of his callers’ claims, but offered them an open forum to express them without fear of ridicule. That\u2019s about as good as they ever got from the national media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest question of all is whether our experience on this planet is it,<\/em> or whether there is something else,\u201d Bell, who was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2008, told Wired<\/em> the following year. \u201cThings in the supernatural realm give support, strangely perhaps, to the things we take on faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Art of Bell<\/h2>\n

Bell grew up a radio nut in a military family, becoming an FCC-licensed radio technician when he was just 13. When he served as a medic in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, he started an on-base pirate radio station that aired anti-war music.<\/p>\n

Bell began his professional career more conventionally, as a late-night rock music DJ, until he grew tired of introducing records for a living. The first talk show he hosted was a political call-in show, \u201cWest Coast AM,\u201d that emanated from inside downtown Las Vegas\u2019 Plaza Hotel and was broadcast by KDWN-AM <\/em>in 1978.<\/p>\n

It was during this stint that Bell met and married his third wife, Ramona, a KDWN <\/em>producer.<\/p>\n

Bell told Wired<\/em> that he grew \u201ccrushingly bored talking about politics 30 hours a week.\u201d So, in 1988, he switched formats and studios. He talked mostly about his favorite topics — conspiracy theories, UFOs and the paranormal — and relocated his operation to the home he and Ramona shared in Pahrump.<\/p>\n

Bell purchased the house next door and converted it into his own KNYE 95.1 FM.<\/em> (Pahrump is located in Nye County or, as Bell liked to put it, \u201cthe Kingdom of Nye.\u201d) Bell hosted, produced and engineered the show, while Ramona handled the business end.<\/p>\n

At the peak of its popularity, \u201cCoast to Coast AM\u201d was America\u2019s highest-rated late night radio talk show, syndicated to more than 500 stations and claiming 15 million listeners nightly.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Art Bell as he appeared in the mid-2000s. (Image: Nye County Sheriff’s Department)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The juxtaposition between the number of people Bell reached and the number who surrounded him physically was stark, and Bell preferred it that way. In 1988, the population of Pahrump, which covers more than 300 square miles, was only 5,000 people. Today, it has exploded by a factor of almost 10, and yet still feels like a very small town.<\/p>\n

Bell Bottoms<\/h2>\n

In 2003, Bell semi-retired, making only occasional guest appearances on \u201cCoast to Coast AM,\u201d which was taken over by George Noory, through 2010. Bell later blamed his exit on undisclosed disagreements with the show\u2019s syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 5, 2006, Ramona died of an apparent asthma attack while on vacation in Laughlin, Nev. Exactly three months later, Bell married his fourth wife, Airyn Ruiz Bell.<\/p>\n

By 2013, Bell launched a new show on Sirius XM Radio called \u201cArt Bell\u2019s Dark Matter,\u201d but it only lasted six weeks. Two years later, he hosted another new show, \u201cMidnight in the Desert,\u201d but resigned five months later due to concerns about his family\u2019s safety. (Bell had reported several incidents of trespassers shooting firearms at and near his property.)<\/p>\n

Bell died on Friday, the 13th of April, 2018 at his Pahrump home. Befittingly, though his cause of death was initially reported as a heart attack, that was not the truth.<\/p>\n

His legions of listeners suspected just that, suggesting unsupported theories including everything from suicide to murder to a hoax.<\/p>\n

The Nye County Coroner’s Office ruled it to be an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Bell was 72.<\/p>\n

\u201cLost Vegas\u201d is an occasional\u00a0Casino.org<\/em>\u00a0series spotlighting Las Vegas\u2019 forgotten history.\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote Pahrump, Nev., monuments to the still-syndicated daily radio show, \u201cCoast to Coast AM,\u201d that Bell founded in 1988. The two adjacent radio towers have been powered off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":330725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3313,81886,1],"tags":[92324,92326,85246,92328,92327,24,92325],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-09-16T20:44:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-18T00:08:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1111\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"775\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Corey Levitan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Corey Levitan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/\",\"name\":\"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-09-16T20:44:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-18T00:08:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/281fd7b5480c9afb75e84ffb75039f09\"},\"description\":\"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg\",\"width\":1111,\"height\":775},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Las Vegas\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/las-vegas\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Casino.org\",\"description\":\"Latest Casino and Gaming News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/281fd7b5480c9afb75e84ffb75039f09\",\"name\":\"Corey Levitan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-3-3-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-3-3-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"Corey Levitan\"},\"description\":\"Corey Levitan joined Casino.org in 2022 after a long career covering Las Vegas. He currently covers gaming news on the US West Coast, including Las Vegas. Corey spent six years covering the Vegas Strip for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he also wrote the most popular humor column in the city\u2019s history. (For \u201cFear and Loafing,\u201d he tried out 176 Vegas jobs, including poker player, blackjack dealer and Follie Bergere dancer.) Corey has won more than 100 local, state and national awards for his journalism, which has also appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine and the New York Post. Corey is a New York native whose hobbies include playing guitar, trying to be a better husband, and arguing with strangers on Facebook. Contact Corey at corey@casino.org.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/corey-levitan\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org","description":"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org","og_description":"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2024-09-16T20:44:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-09-18T00:08:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1111,"height":775,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Corey Levitan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Casino_Org","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Corey Levitan","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/","name":"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound - Casino.org","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg","datePublished":"2024-09-16T20:44:30+00:00","dateModified":"2024-09-18T00:08:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/281fd7b5480c9afb75e84ffb75039f09"},"description":"About an hour\u2019s drive west of the Las Vegas Strip lies a mecca for true believers. The late Art Bell\u2019s house and radio station still stand in remote","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/LOST-art-bell-1.jpg","width":1111,"height":775},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-art-bells-house-and-radio-compound\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Las Vegas","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/las-vegas\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"LOST VEGAS: Art Bell\u2019s House and Radio Compound"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/281fd7b5480c9afb75e84ffb75039f09","name":"Corey Levitan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-3-3-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-3-3-96x96.png","caption":"Corey Levitan"},"description":"Corey Levitan joined Casino.org in 2022 after a long career covering Las Vegas. He currently covers gaming news on the US West Coast, including Las Vegas. Corey spent six years covering the Vegas Strip for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he also wrote the most popular humor column in the city\u2019s history. (For \u201cFear and Loafing,\u201d he tried out 176 Vegas jobs, including poker player, blackjack dealer and Follie Bergere dancer.) Corey has won more than 100 local, state and national awards for his journalism, which has also appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine and the New York Post. Corey is a New York native whose hobbies include playing guitar, trying to be a better husband, and arguing with strangers on Facebook. Contact Corey at corey@casino.org.","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/corey-levitan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330888,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330722\/revisions\/330888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}