RENO, Nev. - The Mustang Ranch, the best-known little whorehouse in
the West, is back in business at a new location. The gaudy pink
stucco buildings and the working girls are there. The only thing
missing is the name.
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State
The bordello reopened Friday east of Reno with the generic name
World Famous Brothel six years after the government shut it down
and auctioned off its buildings and contents.
The Mustang's old parlor ceiling has been replaced with a dome,
painted in fences, shrubs and flowers. Special lighting effects
gradually change the ceiling from sunrise to sunset.
"We have raised the bar on brothel elegance and operation in
Nevada," said Susan Austin, the madam who also directs another
brothel on the same property. "There is nothing else in the state
that can compare with the pleasant, warm decor and atmosphere in
two separate and competing bordello operations."
Prostitution is illegal in Nevada's largest cities but is allowed
in 12 of the state's 17 counties.
Austin said the decor pays homage to Joe Conforte, the original
owner of the brothel, while toning down his garish pinks and
purples.
Conforte's image in leaded glass greets visitors entering the
parlor, where the working girls line up. But Conforte's red flocked
wallpaper and threadbare carpet have been replaced by earth tones
and an Italian motif.
"I wanted to pay homage to Joe Conforte. He made prostitution legal
in Nevada," Austin said.
Conforte, a one-time cab driver in San Francisco who used to
deliver his passengers to prostitutes in the 1960s, took over the
104-room brothel in 1967 when prostitution was illegal in Nevada.
In 1971 it became the state's first legal bordello.
Conforte ran into tax problems with the IRS. He was accused of
owing $13 million in back taxes and fled to Brazil. The government
seized the Mustang Ranch in 1999 after its parent companies and
manager were convicted in a federal fraud and racketeering
trial.
But the U.S.
Bureau of Land Managementwas uneasy about owning a brothel and put
it up for grabs on eBay.
Bordello owner Lance Gilman snapped it up for $145,100, then spent
$4 million to carve up the buildings and move them to his Wild
Horse Resort & Spa brothel, five miles east of the old Mustang
site.
He did not call it the Mustang Ranch because of a dispute with a
rival brothel owner who claims to own the rights to the name.
At the World Famous Brothel, as with the original Mustang, the
wings with the working girls' rooms extend like spokes from an
octagonal parlor. Fifty rooms and two VIP suites are planned. At
the moment, 18 girls are working.
For one, who calls herself Salaizia, it is a job the lifelong Reno
resident has longed for.
"I used to see Joe Conforte on television. I'd see the flashing
lights, the beautiful women. It was a glamorous world," she said.
When she signed on with the new Mustang, "my dream came true."