Archon Residential Management, L.P. history

Lowden was a teenager when, with $7,500 in savings, he journeyed to Nevada in 1961.

Lowden expanded his casino holdings in 1975, putting up $500,000 for a share of the Tropicana.

In mid-1976, Lowden walked away from his Tropicana investment, discouraged by Mafia figure Joseph Agosto's control over the hotel casino's operation.

In 1977, Lowden took full possession of the Hacienda for $20 million.

Losses began in 1982 and continued into the next year, when the company lost $2.6 million on $92.6 million in revenues.

Meanwhile, the Sahara, which had not had any large renovations in nearly 20 years, was beginning to show its age. It was not until 1986 that the new corporation, by then renamed Sahara Resorts, recorded its first profit, of $411,500 on $101 million in revenues.

Delugach, Al, "Casino Owner Beats the Odds," Los Angeles Times , March 13, 1988, Sec.

By 1991, the company's debt had soared to $310 million, generating interest payments of some $33 million per year.

Under Lowden, the Hacienda launched its famous "topless" ice skating revues, which ran in various incarnations until 1993.

That community, meanwhile, was engaged in a drawn-out battle over whether to allow casino operations, a process that required three elections and would not be decided until November 1994.

By June 1995, Lowden and Bennett had struck a new deal.

Because of this circumstance, Santa Fe had a net loss for 1998 of $62.3 million.

In 1999, Santa Fe's subsidiary Sahara Las Vegas Corp. sold a 40-acre parcel of property in Henderson, Nevada, to Station Casinos, Inc. for $37.25 million.

On May 11, 2001, Santa Fe Gaming Corporation changed its name to Archon Corporation.

The company showed a loss of $9.3 million in 2002.