A group of midwestern investors purchased the Landmark from the Summa Corporation in February 1978, at a cost of $12.5 million. The group was led by Lou Tickel and Zula Wolfram, and it included Gary Yelverton. The purchase was financed using money that Wolfram's husband, Ed Wolfram, embezzled from his brokerage firm, Bell & Beckwith. Faye Todd, the Landmark's entertainment director and a corporate executive assistant, primarily oversaw the Landmark's operations for the Wolframs, who lived in Ohio. The Wolframs were high rollers who frequently stayed at the Desert Inn resort when visiting Las Vegas. Todd met the Wolframs while working for the Desert Inn as special events coordinator, and she became close friends with Zula Wolfram, who had been planning to purchase a Las Vegas hotel with her husband. Tickel, a former magistrate judge and a resident of Salina, Kansas, previously owned several other hotels. The group was confident that the Landmark would overcome its financial problems, and they planned to add a 750-room hotel tower to the property within two years.