Welcome to the BunnyRanch

A visit with Dennis Hof, a Nevada businessman trafficking in the world’s oldest profession.

By Daniel Savickas
Monday, October 17, 2005

The dusty dirt road to the BunnyRanch, on the outskirts of Carson City, Nevada, is lined with small industrial buildings with signs for auto mechanics. The Ranch building looks small and plain upon first glance. A large, white iron fence surrounds the BunnyRanch. When you walk up to the entrance, there is a sign that reads, “Ring bell to enter.”

Once you are buzzed in, a short walkway leads up to a darkly tinted glass door. As I entered the Moonlite BunnyRanch, I was greeted by a tall woman, wearing nothing more than high-heel shoes, a push-up bra, underwear and a smile. Had I been a customer, a bell would’ve been rung and the ladies would have come out to form a line in front of me.

The first thing you notice at the BunnyRanch is red. All of the couches, stools, and a chair that is shaped like high-heel shoe are dark red. Abstract paintings of nude women and martinis fill the walls. In the center of the room, there’s a stripper pole, and in the back, a bar.

Four women sat on one couch, talking about what they were wearing or what they were going to wear. A few other women, wearing lingerie or underwear and a robe, sat and gossiped while smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and wine. Another woman, Cinnamon, practiced spinning upside down on the pole, holding on with only her legs. That type of behavior would be enough to get you fired from most jobs.

The Famous BunnyRanch

In 1955, the Moonlite Ranch was opened as an illegal brothel in Carson City, Nevada. It operated illegally until 1972, when Lyon County legalized prostitution. In 1992, Dennis Hof purchased the brothel and changed the name to the Moonlite BunnyRanch. Hof now describes the Ranch as a “rock n’ roll” cathouse where everyone comes to party.

“Every rap star, rocker, and athlete you can name has come here to party,” Hof said. “And some politicians that I will never name, have come here to party.” Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura’s lips are slightly looser – he admitted to visiting the BunnyRanch while running for office. “He’s not the only governor to visit, but he’s the only one to admit it,” Hof said.

For the last 14 years, Hof has continued the 50-year tradition of being open 24/7, 365 days a year. On a typical day, 40 of the 500 women who are licensed to work at the BunnyRanch are on location, and the BunnyRanch receives an average of 100 customers per day.

Legalizing the Oldest Profession

Prostitution had been tolerated in Nevada since the middle of the 19th century. Once it became officially legalized in 1971 it also became highly regulated. Currently, any county with a population less than 400,000 can operate a brothel. (Only one county, the one that includes Las Vegas, has a population larger than that.) According to law, condom use is mandatory for sex and oral sex as is periodic testing for brothel employees. Since 1986, when mandatory HIV testing began, not a single brothel prostitute has tested positive.

Street prostitution is illegal; women can only legally work as licensed prostitutes at brothel facilities. However, though there are only a few hundred legal prostitutes in Nevada, some put the estimates of illegal prostitutes trolling the strip in Las Vegas in the thousands.

Licensed brothel workers are treated as independent contractors and do not receive any unemployment, retirement or health benefits. Fifty percent of all of their pay goes to the brothel. Sometimes an additional percentage goes to the driver who brings the clients to the brothels, which tend to be located on the rural outskirts of towns.

Every once in a while, conservative lawmakers try to introduce legislation to outlaw prostitution in Nevada, but that never seems to go anywhere. While some like to make the social argument that it is safer to regulate a potentially dangerous industry than leave it to the unregulated black market, frankly, economics probably plays a bigger role. A lot of counties benefit financially from legalized prostitution. Brothels provide significant income to poor counties, sometimes paying as much as 70% of a county’s property taxes.

The Man, the Myth, the Pimp Master General

Dennis Hof is an intimidating man, but only for the first few seconds. His size and handshake briefly mask the fact that he is a huge teddy bear. Hof is quick-witted, intelligent, and seems to have, um, an enormous love for women. During our interview, it was not unusual for him to turn away from the questions to put his hand securely on a woman’s backside, or to tweak her nipple as he kissed the back of her neck, saying, “Isn’t she sexy?! OK, what’s your next question?” (Needless to say, he is also quite the salesman.)

Hof is not shy at all about what goes on at the world-famous Moonlite BunnyRanch. “I’m selling booty,” claimed Hof. “I am the P.T. Barnum of booty. I’m selling booty like Colonel Sanders is selling breasts and thighs. In fact, if the colonel had my breasts, thighs, and legs, he would’ve been a general — a five-star general like me. I am the Pimp Master General of America and very proud.”

In the strictest sense of the word, Hof hates the term pimp and what it represents. Hof explained that he is actually the furthest thing away from a pimp. “I’m a businessman that provides a place to work for the girls and a safe, fun environment for my clients,” Hof said.

In Hof’s opinion, prostitution must be legal everywhere. “If you are against legalized prostitution and what the BunnyRanch stands for, then you are for the exploitation of women,” Hof said. “In an illegal environment, these women are exploited terribly by ruthless pimps and police officers that rob and rape them — by customers that kill them. You’re for an illegal sex trade. Each year over 200 girls are killed and thousands upon thousands are injured. If you’re against the BunnyRanch then you’re pro-disease in the workplace.” The BunnyRanch boasts a 23-year record of no HIV in the workplace.

He also claims that legalized prostitution fosters a healthy, legal local economy. “In an illegal situation, the money goes back to illegal activities and drugs,” Hof claimed. “Here the money goes back into the hands of businessmen and the girls that use that money to buy houses and cars.” Hof recently built a $3 million restaurant, bar, and nightclub — called NV50 — across the street from the BunnyRanch for the women to hang out and party in when they’re not working.

The Recipe for Business Success

“The secret to the success, for me, is I apply generally accepted business and accounting practices and treat people like they want to be treated,” Hof said.

Hof points out that unlike the vast majority of brothels in Nevada, he doesn’t keep the women in what he describes as a “punani prison,” which others call “lockdown.” Most Nevada brothels require that their prostitutes stay at the brothel for three straight weeks without leaving the premises.

At the BunnyRanch the women come from all over the United States and range from porn stars, Playboy Playmates and strippers to “number-crunching tax accountants on vacation.” Many of the women live on site and pay $20 a day for rent (which they don’t have to pay if they bring in more than $1,000 in a night). Others own homes in the Carson, Reno, or Tahoe area and commute to work.

Hof says that the women who work for him are not forced to entertain any clients they don’t want. “I tell the girls not to party with anyone they don’t want to… This is a singles bar — the best singles bar in the world — and I want everyone to have a good time. If they don’t want to party with someone because they are too tall, too short, too skinny, too fat, too big of a thingy — like me, it’s gigantic, twice the size of Ron Jeremy’s — then don’t party with them. But be nice to them, don’t embarrass them, just offer to introduce them to a friend.”

Another critical ingredient to his success is the media. And lots of it. The BunnyRanch is the only brothel to constantly open its doors to the media. Hof is what he describes as a media savvy guy, who knows how to get publicity.

“That’s why you’re sitting here right now, I’m using you,” Hof said to me. “Your readers are gonna read this and they’re going to come down here and play with my bunnies. Your girl readers are going to come down here and they’re going to work for me.”

Hof has been on more TV shows than you can name. Right now, BBC 3 in Europe is running an 11-week series on the ranch. Diane Sawyer stayed with ladies of the BunnyRanch for a special that is set to air in the next 60 days on Primetime Live. The HBO series based on the Ranch, The Cathouse, just wrapped up its third season and it is getting ready to be re-run. The first episode beat out HBO’s Entourage and USA Network’s Monk in the ratings.

In addition to the age-old services that brothels have always offered, the ever entrepreneurial Hof always tries to add to the menu. One of his employees, Shelly Dushell, now teaches g-spot classes and other classes specifically intended for couples. The former real estate agent is booked up for 12-hour days, five days a week. “We’ve made the BunnyRanch couples friendly for couples that want to explore their wild side,” Hof said. “It’s OK for them to do that here, what better place to learn?”

Another Type of Celebrity

Only, and I mean only, in America can a man be famous for having his penis cut off. On the particular night I was at the BunnyRanch, John Wayne Bobbit was at the Ranch filming part of a documentary on his life.

Shortly after Bobbit underwent surgery to reconnect his severed penis, which his wife cut off, he starred in a few adult films with Ron Jeremy. After the films, Jeremy got Bobbit a job at the BunnyRanch as a limo driver.

According to Hof, one day Bobbit took two Ranch employees and two men to the Reno Hilton. Once the men had been dropped off, Bobbit informed the women that he was a union driver, which was not true, and that he wasn’t going to drive until he got his hour break. He told the women if they wanted to get back sooner than that, then they had to drive. Shortly after, the limo was pulled over by the police for doing 100 mph through the Washoe Valley. At the wheel was an 18-year-old BunnyRanch employee. In the back was Bobbit, who was sound asleep.

Needless to say, that was the end of his driving days. After that, Hof tried having Bobbit as a celebrity doorman dressed in a tuxedo. “Every guy that walked through the door would say, ‘Hey John, how’s it hangin’?’” Bobbit is no longer an employee of the Ranch.

The Birds and the Bees

Upon entering the Ranch, the women form a line in the main room in front of the customer. If the customer sees someone he likes immediately, he can ask her to go to a room. If not, he can sit at the bar and flirt with the women until one of them strikes a particular fancy.

Once he’s found the woman, or women, of his choice, they go to a room to negotiate. “I tell the girls, ‘Don’t do anything for any less money than you think it’s worth,’” said Hof. “The reason being, some girls don’t like to do certain things as much as others do.”

The women are allowed to set their own price for any action, party, or amount of time they want. For parties, customers can rent out the VIP room, complete with a massage table, or a room that is essentially a giant shower with a special bed in the middle complete with two showerheads above it. That room is for “clean parties.” Get it?

Once the customer and the woman, or women, have reached an agreement, they go off to the specific room, or the employee’s bedroom. In the room, the men are inspected under a bright light to check for any visual evidence of sexually transmitted diseases. Inspected and approved, the men are taken down to the office to pay up front. With the money squared away, it’s off to the room. If the customer paid by time, a buzzer is sounded in the room when his time is up.

Customers can spend anywhere from $100, to $1,000, to many hundreds of thousands of dollars. The record is $1.7 million. One man acquired that tab by spending more than 17 days at the ranch with eight to 10 employees surrounding him 24 hours a day.

Of course, that $1.7 million was just a drop in the bucket. The sex industry, including all legal and illegal activities, is at least a $10 billion industry. And though lawmakers in Nevada continue to accept the brothels without exactly embracing them, Hof seems to think that he can spread the gospel. According to Hof, parents who have seen The Cathouse are bringing in their 18-year-old sons to lose their virginity in a clean and safe environment. As he claims, “the BunnyRanch is the de-virginizing center of America.”

Daniel Savickas is a recently-graduated Michigan native struggling to keep his head and the head of his independent monthly newsprint magazine, The LowDown, above the icy cold waters of Lake Tahoe in California. He and his magazine have been treading water for over a year and a half.

To contact the author, email [email protected].

Illustration: Matt Bors