A stone wall and empty sign post are the only visible exterior to what was once the nicest brothel in Ely, Nevada.

    “Bronc Alley” is the name given to the west end of Ely, Nevada’s High Street. Throughout the mining and railroad town’s history, brothels flourished in a couple different sections in town, though Bronc Alley was the heart of its Red Light District. Today, active houses of prostitution along this section of High Street continue to bathe adjacent Highway 50 in red neon. However one former brothel remains empty and slowly falling to the elements.

Opened in 1959, The Green Lantern was considered the nicest of the town’s operating brothels. A spacious bar occupied the front room, and passengers on the frequent tourist excursion trains running the Nevada Northern Railway lines from the East Ely Railroad Depot could often catch the workers waving from the brothel’s front doorway as the trains ran past.

High Street has traditionally been Ely’s Red Light District since the town incorporated in 1887. Brothels, along with dance halls and saloons occupied a stretch of about three blocks. The opening of the Green Lantern stems from the operation of the town’s oldest brothel, The Big 4 (opened in the 1880’s as Rainey’s Dance Hall). During the late 1950’s, the Big 4 was the only open and operating brothel, however later in the decade was forced to close after being found a public nuisance. During this time competing players were granted a license to build a new brothel, and The Green Lantern would open for business. Eventually the owners of the Green Lantern would purchase the Big 4 building and reopen the closed brothel.

The early Green Lantern building was called the nicest brothel in Ely, with a spacious bar, works of original artwork decorating the walls, and a former owner’s claim – though unconfirmed – that Frank Sinatra would fly to Ely to visit the establishment in order to enjoy a brief escape from the noise and activity of Las Vegas.

In July of 1971, the Green Lantern caught fire – believed to have been arson though no official cause of fire determination was ever made – and completely gutted the structure. The brothel was rebuilt, but this time composed of several trailers and temporary structures connected to one other.

 Customers watched the lineups in a room adjacent to the bar.

The Green Lantern carried on, often with more working girls than the neighboring brothels, though by comparison the town mostly contained smaller houses – rather than the larger brothels operating closer to Nevada’s cities – with only a couple girls working at any given time.

In 1995, the Green Lantern was shut down due to drug charges, when management was found to have been holding onto medication prescribed to former workers and distributing it to current workers.

The Green Lantern would permanently switch off its red light in 1999. The building has remained empty, the makeup of its temporary structures showing increasing signs of weather and wear to Ely’s elements since then.

Bedroom.

 

Closets empty after the brothel’s closure in 1999.

 

One of several bedrooms inside the trailers that made up the newer Green Lantern building.

 

Carpet and sections of mirror decorated the walls in this bedroom.

A hot tub in the VIP room with cracking tile and mirrored walls.

Outfits left behind.

Sitting along an infrequently visited beach on a distant corner of the Caribbean island nation of Aruba is a collection of shacks built from scavenged and salvaged materials creating a colorful ghost town beside the cerulean blue waters.

In a sense appearing odd and slightly eerie, the shoreline of Aruba’s Rincon Beach is lined with waterfront buildings that sit empty and sometimes varying in different stages of prolonged decay and collapse that is the result of a unique combination of cultural and geographical factors.

Built as weekend fishing cabins, the range of permanence in materials and construction skills accounts for the diversity of the shacks’ conditions today. While some were built with second floors and decks, elevated water tanks, sunken foundations and well-enclosed walls, many other cabins were built with found materials like plywood, discarded pallets, vinyl billboard banners and mismatched swaths of carpet. The nicer cabins were built with wooden floors, however the number of these is far less than those made up just walls constructed upon exposed sand.

With most of Aruba’s population centers and tourism concentrated in the island’s northwestern area, Rincon Beach sits along a mostly undeveloped stretch of landscape, sharing the picturesque southeastern portion of the island with an energy-generating wind farm and the island’s only prison, Korrectie Instituut Aruba. The island nation (a constituent country of the Netherlands) is small, occupying only 69 square miles. Central to its style of architecture is that the island lies outside of the hurricane belt of the Caribbean – the last time the island was severely impacted by a hurricane being in the late 1800s. With the Caribbean’s annual hurricane season typically resulting in little more than larger than usual waves and rainstorms, it’s not uncommon to notice housing throughout the island that tends to look surprisingly unreinforced to someone used to western building standards.

Camping is also not permitted in Aruba. The island, including Arikok National Park, contains no public or private campgrounds and does not permit camping for locals or tourists. The single exception to this is during the annual Holy Week leading up to Easter, or Semana Santa, when locals will often camp, returning to the these cabins during that time. 

Signs and remnants of the festive environment around this week of camping are visible. Shacks contain wooden bars, covered patios, bedrooms, large open gathering floors, tables made of wood and old industrial spools – all in varying states. Couches, bed frames, stools and other furnishings can sometimes be seen, however most of what remains is weathered if not completely shredded and torn. There are no signs of bathrooms or plumbing of any kind beyond what is left from the rooftop water tanks.

Most cabins and shacks are painted in bright colors, several still boast the “ranch” name given to the property by the builders.

It’s unclear when these were built. Despite being about a 25 minute drive from the capital and tourism center of Oranjestad, those historical museums we questioned had little – and sometimes none at all – knowledge of the cabins’ existence or history. The nearer city of San Nicolas, despite their efforts to rebrand themselves as a vibrant community with tourist appeal, tends to retain its grittier image as a working and industrial colony based around the refinery and not quite able to solidly launch its tourist economy centered around the picturesque and often overlooked Baby Beach.

The rural beach area is dotted with shacks however remains quiet and deserted most of the time

 

One of the nicer cabins with water tanks and balcony slowly succumbing to the elements

Rincon Beach suffers from a tide that sweeps much of the ocean trash onto its shores

 

A vinyl billboard provided protection from the onshore wind

 

Cabin built almost entirely of pallets

Wood floor luxury

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When we recorded, I wasn’t thinking about other people. I didn’t have anybody to really look to, because it wasn’t a genre back then,” recalls Trinere, reflecting on her recording sessions in South Florida penning what would become some of the most well known songs of the freestyle musical style. “I came from the jazz world. He [referring to “Pretty Tony” Butler who she would partner with in music and romantically] was doing his own style. I wasn’t gonna allow him to give me just any type of simple track. I wanted a bridge, I wanted a chorus. I wanted to sing! And that’s where we gelled.”  

Trinere Farrington, known simply by her first name, is looking back on her days helping to innovate what would come to be called freestyle music. These days the music is instantly recognizable – electronic production and beats branching off of old school hip hop and adding some soul, catchy vocals. If you’re of a certain age, this was probably the music of school dances and roller skating rinks. The delivery is just so catchy that even the vibe it conjures is a carefree night with friends, even if the lyrics were reminiscing on the depths of a troubled relationship. The music just simply takes you back to carefree times.  

And Trinere was there from the beginning. Following a chance meeting with producer “Pretty Tony” who had just produced two songs – “Lookout Weekend” and “When I Hear Music” – with artist Debbie Deb that would blow up with everyone from DJs throwing parties in parks and street parties to Black radio stations broadcasting throughout urban airwaves. Having grown up in Miami and fresh upon returning to the city following some time living up in New York where she auditioned for the Mary Jane Girls, Trinere was at a party where a friend introduced her to Sherman Nealy who owned record labels Music Specialists and Jam Packed.  

“He was like, ‘Oh, you can sing really good?’ My partner is Pretty Tony, I know you’ve heard of him.” Trinere mentions she hadn’t heard of Tony, but had heard those songs he produced for Debbie Deb. Upon Nealy’s insistence that they meet, Trinere found she and her friend following Nealy as they drove to West Palm Beach where Butler’s home studio was located.  

“We didn’t hit it off in the beginning,” she explains of her meeting with Butler. “He had a huge ego. He was judging me without hearing me. He was like, ‘If you can sing, I want you to go in there and listen to this song and see what you can do with it’.” Trinere took his challenge. “I picked up the feel of the song immediately. I learned the song really fast, and that first night of meeting him is when I recorded “I Know You Love Me”. I killed it, on the first take!”  

She describes staying up throughout the night at Butler’s studio and just working on music. Following the all night session, the two recorded “All Night” the following day. Both of these songs would appear on her 1986 deubt album Trinere released on Nealy’s Jam Packed label.   “I pretty much ended staying there for weeks. That’s how I met him and it was history after that.” The arrangement soon became a lot more than professional. Trinere and Butler got together romantically, the two would have a son together. Though while the relationship experienced its ups and downs, musically the two were constantly working on new sounds. Fusing Trinere’s music school background and Butler’s experimenting with electronic production and sounds, as well as a team of writers who were staying at the home studio and witnessing the ups and downs of their relationship all while turning that around into lyrics in real time, Trinere and Butler were innovating a new style of music that had its roots in the Black soul music popular at the time, along with Latin rhythm and beats that the Miami scene was rich in.  

Trinere remarks that the chemistry between the two, even in the midst of a relationship that was experiencing its peaks and valleys, brought an element that is audible in the music. “We had a love for each other. He wanted me to succeed, he wanted me to be the best out there. I was the only artist that he focused on, that the whole company focused on. We fought, he pissed me off a lot. Being the popular producer, there’s always gonna be a lot of women around. We went through our things and a lot of my music reflected that because the writers who wrote for me, they witnessed everything, they were a part of everything, and they wrote about it.”  

Trinere would go on to record songs like “They’re Playing Our Song”, “How Can We Be Wrong”, and “I’ll Be All You Ever Need”. Songs were typically around 6 minutes long, and just possessed a wickedly danceable beat. Her sound continued to evolve. She would put out an R&B album on the record label owned by Luke of 2 Live Crew. But then she and Butler split for good, and ultimately one day in 1992, she made the conscious decision to walk away from the music altogether.  

“I left the music business. I jumped off the train and I went more towards God because I wanted to raise my son in a clean atmosphere, with no stress, no drama, and there’s just a lot of both of those in the music industry. I left the music business for 14 years and I got into the ministery.” Trinere wanted to devote her full attention to her son, intentionally trying to guide him away from the lifestyle she was involved with, even so much as hiding her music from him. Though she would find out later that classmates had informed him of his mother’s music, and in secret he would write music himself.  

“I will never forget this day – one day I go into his room and I was like ‘What is that? Is that your father’s music, why are you playing his music?’ And he was like ‘No, mom. That’s my song. I produced it’. I started crying because I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe that he had produced a track that way, at a young age, and it sounded exactly like his dad. It was identical. I’m about to cry now thinking about it.”  

It would still be a few more years, but Trinere would find her way back into music. Actually, the music came knocking at her door, and everything just seemed to say that the timing was right.  

“I was married to a pastor. I went through a lot with him, he was a bit crazy, very jealous. We divorced when my son was. Senior in high school. When I did that a lot of things started changing. Stevie B would call me all the time, and I’d be like, ‘No Stevie, I’m not ready. I’m still on the path. I’m still with God. I’m not trying to do the devil’s music’.” She gave a laugh as she described this. “Stevie would be on my case, ‘Jesus ain’t gonna be mad at you!’ he would say.”  

Trinere was also getting phone calls from concert promoters. At the time, 20 years later, freestyle music was kicking up some serious nostalgia for those who listened to the music to escape back to their younger years.  

“One day they called me at the right moment. I had divorced my husband, I had moved to Atlanta. My son had been raised – he had graduated and was going to college. I was ready, for a new life, for new everything. So I’m like, let’s do this!”  

A serendipitous connection is sometimes all that it takes. When reflecting on those early days of hiding out from her parents who she had not told she had returned to Miami from New York, sleeping beneath the soundboard in Butler’s West Palm Beach studio while the writers spent their nights sleeping in the control room, waking to work on music, creating what none had foreseen would be essential albums of a new genre of music that would take off, and remain popular in the 2020’s – close to 40 years later, Trinere just talks about how they all experienced it like a family.  

“I came back in 2005. It had been 14 years and it was like I didn’t miss a beat. That first show – it was great. It was like I had never left the stage. It’s been 37 years since I started recording. I think we work more now than we did back in the 80’s.”  

Trinere talks about the love she gets from fans of her music throughout the world, who have expressed that her music has gotten them through emotionally hard times. She talks about Freestyle concerts and tours that she enjoys performing at. “It just shows you that good music will last forever.”  

On seeing how some of the music that she helped innovate has continued to evolve, all while leading a new generation of fans back to her era of the sound, Trinere explains it was just the combination of their tastes that resulted in those early recordings.  

“We didn’t try to create a genre or be one way, we just made music. We just flowed, you know? I was always taking him [Butler] different ideas, I just had a different style. We just did music…”  

If there was a single device that ran through Trinere and Butler’s music, it was this:  

“I like production. I like the fullness of the sound – the hard driving dance beats. The energy, that’s the element I life. I always said to Tony, ‘If I’m not dancing or getting goose bumps, then nobody else will’.”  

Loviet’s recordings are available on all music streaming platforms…

Catch her on the web:

Facebook – trinere

Instagram – @trineremusic

or head to KWNKradio.org to listen to Nocturnal Transmissions and other freeform programming for the Reno area.

*** return to the Nocturnal Transmissions Blog ***

With a prime location on a Hawaiian black sand beach, the Punalu’u Village Restaurant and Ka’u Center of History and Culture deteriorates into the elements.

    Historically the land on the southeastern coast of Hawaii’s Big Island was that of the Ka’u Kingdom. In the late 1800’s, this area was connected to other parts of Hawaii by commercial shipping, allowing the land to build a large economy based around sugar plantations.

Prior to the completion of the island’s first railroad in 1878, which connected the village of Punalu’u in the Ka’u District to the town of Keaiwa, Punalu’u harbor and landing would be the primary access used by these communities. Punalu’u, a black sand beach, made a natural spot for a landing for the steamer ships that transported people and goods as it was one of the few sandy beaches on an otherwise unforgiving coastline shaped by volcanic activity of Mauna Loa.

In 1910, one of the main sugar plantations would be purchased by the C. Brewer & Co. who would run the plantation and much of the local community constructed around housing workers until the sugar industry in this area would close for good in the late 1900’s.

  In the 1970’s, the Brewer Company – one of the five largest landowners in Haawii – would begin work on a resort beside the beach. Seeking to build in land just above a freshwater lagoon that once served as a royal fishpond, the Brewer Company ran into opposition from the community regarding developing the area, with community members citing the sacred history of the grounds.

The ponds were a natural habitat that only exists in the United States on Hawaiian islands, with brackish water filling and moving through collapsed lava tubes, and connected to the sea through tunnels and cracks in the rocks. 

The development would open in 1972 as the Punalu’u Village Restaurant and Ka’u Center of History and Culture. The property fronted a series of walking paths with wooden bridges the crossed the lagoon and connected the buildings to the black sand beach. The beach was already an attraction for tourists, known for its snorkeling and sea turtles who can often be seen swimming in the cove and laying in the sand. A gift shop, interpretive signage, and spacious restaurant with artworks by well known Hawaiian artists stood throughout the property. Plans were in the works to develop hotel rooms. However much of this changed just three years after it opened…   

  On November 29th of 1975, an earthquake struck off the coast of Hawaii. Locals along this section of coast reported hearing rocks tumbling from cliffs as a result of the shaking. In less than 2 minutes, waves measuring about 5′ rolled against the shore. However it was a second quake that same evening that would send 26′ waves against the Big Island coast, washing some Punalu’u homes from the their foundations. The incoming waves put flooded the restaurant, leaving a layer of mud when it eventually retreated.    

Viewed from overhead, the sand leaves two structures nearly entirely buried

 

The resort front a former royal fishpond adjacent to the Punalu’u black sand beach

A series of bridges connecting the restaurant to the beach lay in ruins

 

 

 

 

Ka’u Center of History and Culture

Abandoned since the late 1990s

Patio deck outside of the restaurant

Employee area

After leaving, the owner had boarded up the roof and windows of this home to protect it…

 

 

Dining room

Environmental conditions of an intermittent river, combined with the unforeseen results of road maintenance ignited a slow, nightmarish scenario for several residents who saw their homes buried in drifting sand in a small Mojave Desert town.

The Mojave River flows for 110 miles, originating on the northern side of California’s San Bernardino Mountains and typically ending in a basin at the edge of the Mojave National Preserve. The majority of the river flow is beneath the surface, though unusually wet periods will lead to the river surfacing along a larger portion of its course, as well as its terminus stretching further to reach the normally dry Soda Lake near the remains of the former Zzyzx Mineral Springs community or Silver Lake to the north of the town of Baker.

Most of the river’s route courses through the Mojave Desert region, an area often seen as a cast off landscape of eastern California that lies distant from any popular destinations aside from food or gas stops along the drive to Las Vegas or Arizona. However within this supposed flyover terrain lies the ongoing drama and partially buried effects of shortsighted decisions and a slow enveloping destructive process that forced some of those who called the area home to move away.

The Mojave River cuts through the town of Newberry Springs, visible by a path of sand across the landscape. Newberry Springs as a whole is a town on the decline – with its commercial locations along historic Route 66 losing nearly all traffic with the late 1950’s completion of Interstate 15, the closure and decay of nearby tourist attractions such as Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark at the town’s fringes, and many of the homes in town being the refuge of a populace just seeking a quiet corner of the desert in which to be left alone.

Following the completion of the interstate, Newberry Springs could be divided into two areas, the older homes and neighborhoods along Route 66 on the south side of the Mojave River, and a few properties fronting the route of I-15 on the north side of the river. Only two roads cross the river’s sandy surface, and these roads are prone to seasonal closures during wet conditions when the water reaches the surface and floods the sandy channel, washing over the two-lane asphalt bands.

Beginning in 1979, after winds would blow sand across Minneola Road, one of the two cross-river paths, San Bernardino County maintenance crews would collect the sand and dump it on the downwind side of the road. During this time, residents who lived in homes further downwind began noticing the constant accumulation of sand on their properties. Some of the residential lakes created from pumping the underground river water to the surface – so prevalent and large in the area that some were and still are used to train waterskiers – began to fill with the endless roaming particles, while other homes would construct walls and barriers to protect against the walls of sand that would gather and build on their windward sides.

Following waves of complaints, the county ceased the practice of removing and dumping sand in 1991, however other conditions had taken hold – including the increasingly widespread pumping of groundwater that led to more dry sand in the area, and local utilities installing lines which further unsettled the river floor. As the sand dunes moved migrated downriver, more residents would talk of the sand particles entering their homes through any opening, leaving surfaces covered in dust after short periods of time, rendering electronics damaged and useless, and costing thousands of dollars in useless attempts to hold back the endless flow of sand.

Residents joined together in a lawsuit against the county, however the county sued other entities in attempts to disperse the blame for the sand ultimately forcing people from their homes and leaving the properties essentially valueless.

These days, several of the abandoned homes of Newberry Springs still sand, some with their defenses against the sand visible – walls, fencing, trees – though sand dunes towering up to 20 feet tall cover these fortifications, and much of the homes and vehicles themselves. What remains are signs of those who were eventually given no option but to walk away from their homes. Children’s toys lay in the sand, while the interiors of buildings cannot be entered, some brimming to the tops of their walls with solid piles of sand. In others, mattresses and appliances lay partially buried. 

The Mojave River continues to flow past just a short distance from these homes, still under the surface except after the wettest conditions. But from an overhead perspective, it’s clear to see that the dunes have spread beyond the edges of the river’s course. Sheets of sand and a constantly fluid movement of dunes cover and uncover the remains of the structures in its path. The shifting nature of the sand leaves the abandoned homes and buildings in a varying and changing state of being buried. However to step inside of a home and see the sand piling up to its countertops and its roof collapsing from the weight of sand collected above it is to realize the nightmare of living in a place that is taken over and destroyed slowly, to have all of one’s possessions damaged by the sand particles that will infiltrate even the smallest opening. Then to walk outside and around the building and see the sand piled to the tops of doorways and windows – a view at the elapsed years of the dune’s movement and what each property in the sand’s path would ultimately look like, regardless of the short term barriers and attempts at saving the homes made over the decades – it brought the feeling home.

The abandoned homes of Newberry Springs remain, with residents having stayed until the early 2000’s. Meanwhile other homes are still lived in, though to keep the asphalt streets to the homes drivable and free of the drifting sands remains an ongoing effort.

Lying mostly ignored and localized, there are few media mentions or attention on the long since gone residents and the structures which continue their slow deterioration in the Mojave sun. One good article that captures the area in the midst of the unfolding of the lawsuits and abandoning movement away from the area is this Los Angeles Times article, published in 1993.

Viewed from overhead, the sand leaves two structures nearly entirely buried

 

 

Sand traps a gate at the property’s edge

The upstairs floor of a two-story home in Newberry Springs

 

 

Bus left in a driveway. Livable property here once stretched to the thick green trees in the near distance

Master bedroom

Toys left behind when moving from the buried landscape

Sand reaches the top of the fence lining this home’s property

This 16′ tall wall was built to protect this home – the dune behind the home towers even higher

Front door

After leaving, the owner had boarded up the roof and windows of this home to protect it…

 

 

Endless… The surface of the Mojave River with one home pictured bottom left.      

 

 

 

or see our other blog posts here.

The Cherry Patch Ranch brothel in the southern Nevada town of Crystal has a storied history. The building, owned by infamous brothel owner Dennis Hof, sits just up the road from the Love Ranch building where Hof’s dead body was found after celebrating his 72nd birthday.

While he unquestionably used his media savvy to build the reputation and advertise his properties, Dennis Hof may not have even been the most interesting personality to have had a hand in the brothels in Crystal…

A view of the Cherry Patch Ranch brothel trailers and adjoining restaurant

Maynard “Joe” Richards was born in Duluth, Minnesota, and moved first to Las Vegas, before settling in Nevada’s Amargosa Valley in the 1970’s. At the time, he purchased a 1.25 acre parcel in the town of Crystal for $1500 from someone who had wanted to develop the rural area for housing, but opted to sell off his lots when the plan didn’t work out.

Richards would begin to buy up all the land that he could in Crystal, eventually ending up with over 100 acres.

Around 1978, Richards moved two small trailers onto his parcel and opened up the Cherry Patch brothel. Starting with six workers, the brothel would add trailers, eventually growing to house over 20 girls.

The operation was noticed by Bill Apfel, who owned the Shamrock Bar in nearby Lathrop Wells. The Shamrock had been the only legal brothel in southern Nye County until Richards’ arrival whose brothel opening occurred around the same time as Walter Plankinton opening the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump. Apfel would engage in a series of activities to vandalize, harass and generally sabotage these newer competing establishments. While Richards managed to avoid the more serious firebombing instigated by Apfel at the Chicken Ranch, the Cherry Patch Ranch saw its signs cut down and the wall surrounding the property damaged.*

A hallway into the parlor at the abandoned Cherry Patch Ranch brothel

On one occasion, the Nye County Sheriff’s Department, later shown to have an especially friendly relationship with Apfel and the Shamrock Bar, delivered a notice to Richards to shut down the Cherry Patch Ranch at noon on a specified date. Noting that closing at noon was the extent of the orders, when the date arrived, Richards brought all of the workers outside of the Cherry Patch at 11am. At 12pm, the Sheriff’s Department put up a barbwire fence around the property while Richards and the workers looked on. A little bit later, Richards asked a deputy what time he had. The deputy responded with around 12:30. Richards then dismantled the barbwire and moved everyone back inside to return to work.

Parlor room inside the Cherry Patch Ranch

After Apfel’s murder at his Lathrop Wells brothel, Richards bought the property and renamed it the Cherry Patch II, citing it being an ideal location, bringing the number of brothels under his ownership to three – the two Cherry Patch properties as well as Mable’s Whorehouse and Bar, and Madam Butterfly’s Bath and Massage Salon also located in Crystal.

In 2006, Joe Richards was charged with attempting to bribe a Nye County commissioner, allegedly offering to pay Commissioner Candice Trummell in order to rewrite an ordinance that would then allow him to build a brothel at the south end of Pahrump. Trummell had been working with the FBI and recording her phone calls with Richards.

Richards would plead guilty in 2009. With a criminal record, the brothel owner was eventually forced to close his properties.

A buyer appeared in Dennis Hof, who at the time owned properties in Northern Nevada and was looking to expand into the southern portion of the state.

Under his ownership, Hof would rename the Cherry Patch II into the Alien Cathouse, and would change Mable’s Bar into the Love Ranch South, where he focused his attention in Crystal. The original Cherry Patch, standing a few hundred yards away from the Love Ranch, would occasionally appear in the media through several rebranding campaigns – a couple of which included a brothel museum, a Las Vegas Raiders themed brothel catering to athletes which made the news quickly after the announcement the team would be moving from Oakland to Las Vegas, and the opening of a larger casino and nightclub with brothel on the site. While there were little bits of movement on some of these ideas, Hof seemed to focus his energy on the Love Ranch property, and in hindsight, it may have just been the savvy newsmaker’s way of keeping his brothels in the news feeds while adhering to Nevada’s strict laws governing brothel advertisements.

Inside one of the bedrooms at the Cherry Patch Ranch

The restaurant adjoined to the Cherry Patch Ranch would continue to maintain its alcohol license, and would host occasional events while the trailers that once housed the brothels languished and weathered just down the hall. 

Following his sentencing of time in a halfway house and probation, Joe Richards focused his time on his Pahrump newspaper, The Mirror, which included his weekly column, “On Target: From the Kingdom of Nye”. Richards died in 2021.

Hof would die in 2018, in the midst of a political campaign for Nevada State Assembly, which he posthumously won. The old Cherry Patch Ranch sat abandoned following his death. 

The Cherry Ranch was included with all of Hof’s former properties in the town of Crystal, sold to a cash buyer in 2022.

Child’s scribbles on paper kept in one worker’s possessions inside an abandoned bedroom

Decorating to set the mood inside the trailer bedroom

Rooms had platforms for TVs that showed adult movies

Possessions left behind at the Cherry Patch Ranch

Brothel chic – the idea of turning the Cherry Patch Ranch into a brothel museum never materialized

Steam room inside the brothel

The adjacent Crystal Springs Bar saw more recent use, but also sits abandoned

Adult Fun – Open 24 Hours

Cherry Patch Ranch with Love Ranch property at the end of the road

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