Brothels
- Chardon's Club
- Dovetail Ranch
- Inez's
- Mona's Ranch
- Sharon's Brothel & Bar
- Sue's Fantasy Club
The brothels in Elko are located in a light commercial-low income residential area just a few blocks southeast, off the main drag. The brothels are surrounded by tree shaded streets and mobile homes with waist high fences. Three of the houses, Sue's, Chardon's and Mona's share one block and kitty corner across the street are Inez's D&D and PJ's Lucky Strike which are next door neighbors. I was told that PJ's hasn't been all that lucky, they have been temporarily closed, because they can't get any working girls. All of the brothels in Elko, have about the same number of rooms available, around 7-9. Mona's had 3 ladies, Chardon's had 2 ladies, and Inez's D&D had just one.
The brothels are good neighbors, their exteriors are well kept and landscaped. Sue's has a fresh looking paint job, which to me, fairly screams, "I'm a brothel and proud of it ! ". Sue's, is without a doubt, a highly visible, ‘painted lady'. The two story building is a conservative off white on her ground floor. The second floor is a bright port wine color, with electric turquoise trim. Mona's, next door, by comparison is painted a dowdy sandy beige. Chardon's around the corner is somewhere in the middle, with her institutional gray paint contrasted with bright pink trim.
Inez's D&D and PJ's are nondescript buildings and not as spectacular as her gaudy neighbor across the street. Inez's makes up by having a large sign on the corner to announce herself. None of these brothels have a gated, fenced in area, like the brothels near Reno or Carson City. To get into any of the Elko brothels, it's reminiscent of the prohibition, speakeasy days of the roaring 20's. You walk up to the door and ring the doorbell. Someone on the inside looks through a one way window or peephole, then after looking you over, you're buzzed in.
The houses have no parking lots, all parking is on the street. But from what I could see, there's plenty of parking all around the houses. For truckers driving their semis, there are a couple of businesses in the area with parking lots that you can use if they're closed, or since South 3 rd street dead ends at the railroad track two blocks from the brothels, there's plenty of parking on the street that parallels the track.
Sue's Fantasy Ranch is by far the nicest of the Elko brothels. The interior matches the exterior. It looks like it's been recently remodeled, with new furnishings and a very well stocked bar. It looks like they were going for a gentlemans ‘club' atmosphere. The bar seats around 10 people. They have a mirrored dance floor with a brass pole off to the right side. It has two café tables with two chairs each on the edge of the stage. The bartender told me that if the gentleman would like a lady to dance for him, it'd cost $ 25.00. There were a couple more small two seater café tables and chairs along the walls for the guys to have get acquainted chats with the ladies.
To the right of the bar was a small multicolored neon bulletin board. The ladies names and their schedules are written on it. When I asked about the available ladies, the bartender pulled out a little photo album to show me snapshots of the ladies. Each lady had at least a couple of pictures so you could get a good idea of what she looked like. The bartender said shifts were staggered to maximize their available resources.
I dunno why it struck me funny, when I saw them. Behind the bar were a row of electronic digital timers with a name placard for each working girl, instead of the usual mechanical wind-up kitchen egg timers that are universally used by the brothels to time the parties. The bartender explained to me, they were more accurate than the spring wind-up timers, so the gentleman didn't get shorted on time. Nice touch. Tempus fugit, when you're having fun.
Mona's was what I'd call a ‘quaint' brothel-bar. The exterior looked freshly painted, wearing a coat of clean khaki-beige paint. When I walked through the front door, I had to do a double take. I thought I'd walked into a home, not a brothel. Immediately to the right was a carpeted staircase and a short hallway in front of me. I continued down the narrow hallway towards the light and finally came into the bar area. I looked around and from the layout of the place, It would be my guess that it'd been a family home that had been converted into a bawdy house. The bartender told me that Mona's was built in 1903. The last remodel looked like it was done when artificial wood grained paneling was in style, sometime in the mid 1960's. The paneling was well worn and the place could have used an upgrade and remodel. There is a long, olde tyme wooden bar, which was no doubt the original one installed, when it was converted from family home to brothel. It dominated the full length of the short room. There were eight barstools along it's length. At the end of the room is a little alcove area with a juke box.
Chardons' is the brothel with the bright pink trim to offset it's gray walls. The interior looks like a bar stuck in time from around 1950-60. It was well kept and clean. It's newer looking than Mona's and larger, but other than that, it wasn't noteworthy. According to the bartender, they had two working girls and they had only one on duty. She asked me if I wanted to meet her. I replied that I just wanted to sit at the bar for now and have a drink.
The working girl heard me from the open door of her nearby room and came into the bar and asked me to go on a tour. I told her that I'd like to see the place, but wasn't planning on partying. She insisted that I go on a tour anyway. She showed me the Jacuzzi room, then we went to her room and she gave me her spiel. She explained what an hour in the jacuzzi would cost, what the house minimum was and was I interested. I told her I was just on a self guided tour and thanked her for her time, then left. I wanted to hang out in the bar and talk to the bartender about the history of the house, but she was busy stocking the bar.
Inez D&D is the last brothel in my self guided Elko tour. The bar is just a narrow room. Just looking around, it looked like they were either in the process of remodeling, or they'd changed their minds and aborted their plans in the middle of the job, so the place is eclectic. There's no parlour, per se, as the room is long and narrow, the only seating available is on one of the eight or nine stools at the bar. One interesting touch is the floor to ceiling post left unchanged at the end of the remodeled bar. This round, bare wood post has been ‘signed' by many of the previous customers. I didn't read any the signatures, as there were layers of names overlaying the previous signatures, creating a tower of autograph babel. The newer scrawls were done in felt tip pen, destroying the ball point penned or fountain penned names from the past. So I wasn't able to see if anyone famous or infamous had visited this brothel and signed the, "I was here, pole".
The walls of the bar were in a pink pastel print wallpaper. Behind the bar was an ornate gold leafed, framed mirror. I guess someone was going for Baroque.
The bartender told me they only had one lady in house at the time. She came out and welcomed me. I was amazed that someone who was on duty 24/7 was so energetic and cheerful. She gave me a tour of the facilities, showing me the hot tub and her room. She proudly pointed out that all the ladies rooms had a telephone. (Most houses have a shared ‘community' pay phone for the ladies). She led me out the back door and the fenced in grassy yard. She said, after we partied, we could come out here and lie naked in the sun. I didn't see that as appealing, visualizing areas of my body, which have never seen the light of day, getting sunburned, itchy and well...start, a peeling.
If you stop to think about it, it's mindboggling, at least to me. This single, solitary, cheerful soul had the sole responsibility of keeping the owners of this brothel in business. Otherwise, like its next door neighbor brothel, PJ's Lucky Strike, it'd have to shut its doors. With her in the parlour, they could keep their doors open, and probably sold enough liquor to pay for the bartender and some of the overhead, and any money she made was split with the house. The gal told me she made a deal with the owner, she'd work 24/7 without any time off until he got another girl to relieve her and was keeping her commitment to the house. That's showing a heck of a lot of loyalty for someone who's an ‘independant contractor'.
I thanked her for her time and ended my tour of the Elko houses.
Would I go back there again ? To be honest, No.
But, if I were traveling and close to Elko and had the opportunity to visit their brothels, I definitly would. The people I met and talked to said that summer time is their busy season, with more ladies coming to work. It seems there are working girls who travel a circuit of the Nevada brothels. They stay a few weeks here and a week or two there. The girls like it because they're always the ‘new' girl in the house. When a guy asks how long she's been there, she can honestly say, "I'm new, I've only been here a week." Most working girls will tell you that guys are attracted to the ‘new' girl in a house. They always seem to book well. So if you go, be sure to check all the houses. Ladies come and ladies go. You never know which house will have the right girl for you.