Per article, page 5 in The Oregon Journal March 31, 1948

There was a baseball team in Portland called Club Mecca beginning in 1947 which appears to have played against other restaurants like Ernie’s Tavern, Corona Café. Joseph Starvaggi opened the Club Mecca, a short-lived enterprise that closed in 1952 for nonpayment of taxes. [sold in 1950] 

Left: The Oregonian November 30, 1950, page 12

Right: The Oregon Journal November 30, 1950 Page 15

Left: The Oregonian January 5, 1951 Page 2

Right: The Oregon Journal June 1, 1951 page 7

Club Mecca is followed by The Desert Room.

Left: Artile in The Oregon Journal Friday, June 22, 1951

Right: Ad in The Oregon Journal, July 10, 1951

As described by Phil Stanford in his book, Portland Confidential (2007 – Westwind Press), about sex, crime and corruption in Portland, the Desert Room was: “…one of the most fascinating nightclubs Portland has ever seen. On any night of the week, you could expect to find a good portion of the Portland underworld hanging out…The pimps and madams all made the scene every night, and there was always a contingent of safecrackers, who in those days were considered the princes of the rackets. The nightclub was run by Nathan Zusman, the self-proclaimed "Mark of Stark Street," who figured prominently in the McCleian Senate Racketeering subcommittee hearings held in Portland in 1957. Following that testimony, Portland City Council pushed to close the Desert Room, but Zusman successfully maneuvered to retain his liquor license. However, two years later in 1959, following additional complaints, Zusman's license for the Desert Room was revoked. New ownership re-opened a somewhat sanitized operation, and the club continued operations until the late 1960s…when it became the Pied Piper, and then the Red Garter.” 

Not much press deals with the hotel. An ad [below Left] in the Oregonian Want Ads under Hotel Room, November 25, 1961; another ad [below RIght] in October and November 1962 Oregonian states,“Under new management”. The last time the Majestic Hotel was advertised in The Oregonian was December 19, 1970.

In the August 1972 issue of The Fountain under More Letters to the Editor “The Majestic Hotel had baths “for men only” is one of The Fountains…” 

Check out the September 1972 issue talking about bathhouses – page 10 Letters To The Editor. ln 1973, the Hotel Majestic became the "Club Baths" and both the hotel and restaurant became openly homosexual enterprises. [Sources disagree on the opening year. The Portland Mercury has said the business operated as Club Baths in 1971 (possibly December) and later became known as Club Portland. The club's official website mentioned "Continental Club Baths" and "since 1967", (not verified) as of April 2001. Another newspaper in Portland, Oregon The Willamette Week stated that it was established by Richard Lawson in 1987.

OWNERSHIP OF THE BUILDING:

After careful review, a building permit dated 9-9-1945 states that John and Francis Welch from the New Heathman Hotel owned the building, the next name attached is Ezra Menache who purchased the building in 1953 from the Welch’s. Ezra passed away in 1983 at the time it appears that Ezra was the owner; another name is on some of the documents and that is David Menashe [10/31/1963]. On building inspection dated 12/28/1967 owner is stated as Menashe Bros. Ezra had one son, Solomon, his name is mentioned on a document dated May 21, 1974, as part of a meeting at the building, and in another document his name is Sol.[Per Solomon’s obituary he passed on Aug. 2, 2017, Sol worked as an accountant for the City of Portland for many years, as well as Corno's Produce Market.] In Portland there are two families with the name Menashe that are involved in real estate; Ruben J. Menashe, Inc. since 1960, and Menashe Properties founded around 1973. It does not appear that either of these companies owned this building.

OWNERSHIP OF THE BUSINESS WHICH HAD VARIOUS NAMES FOR THE HOTEL/BATHHOUSE PORTION:

1971 Owned and operated by A&B Cattle Company [no documents found for this company’s owner (s). The first ad states, “Owners of Club Baths”. However, per Club Baths - Wikipedia, “At its peak, it included 42 bathhouses and The Club was founded in 1965 by John W. Campbell (generally known as "Jack") (born 1932) and two other investors who paid $15,000 to buy a closed Finnish bath house in Cleveland, Ohio.” No mention of Portland, Oregon. An ad in 1972 that Club Baths owned by A&B Cattle Company had bathhouses in Denver, Sacramento, Reno, and Portland [see ad above].

1973 Per building permit owner of the hotel/bathhouse business was Dale Bently PO Box 5342 San Francisco, CA.

1981 Per building inspection report the hotel/bathhouse business was Waldimer Spliid at 418 SW Washington.

1985 Per article in City Week Press, “…lease expired.”

1986 Per article in City Week Press, “Continental Club…negotiated new lease…”

1986 Sharon Bates purchased the building in its entirety from the Menashe Family Trust.

1986 Per building permit dated 11/3/1986 Richard Lawson and Sharon Bates were the owners of Club Baths. Richard owned Club Continental Baths on 531 SW Park but closed it in 1985.

TIDBITS:

1971 – City of Portland permits, remodel on 2nd floor adding a ‘steam room’ adjacent to the shower which allowed for 16 (1 sex) occupancy, Room 212 changed.

1972 advertising stated, “with hotel accommodations.”

1975 Fire on the third floor

1976 the amenities changed, and it was advertised as; sauna, lockers, spa room, The “Den”, theater lounge featuring “X-rated films”, bunk room, Deluxe room with closed circuit TV and announced, “Watch for our opening of the sun deck.”

1978 Installation of elevator per building permits – cost $28,203.00 [completed in May 1979]

1981 Major violations

1983 Gained “Certificate of Occupancy”.

1996 Richard Lawson purchased the building in its entirety from Sharon Bates.

2000 Lawson & Nelson under Continental Building Inc. purchased the building in its entirety from Richard Lawson.

2007 Burnside West RPO LLC the building in its entirety from Continental Building Inc (Lawson & Nelson).

2008 McMenamin’s purchased in its entirety from Burnside West RPO LLC.

Listed in The Northwest Gay Scene 1972 it was The Majestic Hotel and Club Baths as per the ad below:

Ad in the Fountain, May-June 1976 page 27

Above Left Ad in Cascade Voice newspaper November 11, 1983; Above Right Cascade Voice February 25, 1983 Right: New name announced The Eagle Newsmagazine, March 1985.

Left: photo: Nelson Minar June 14, 2005.

Right: As cited in Portland’s 2005 Columbia FunMap with ad.

Photo to the right. Notice sign on door “Zippers””

The balance of what happened on the first floor restaurant portion can be found under Bars, Taverns & Restaurants - see The Pied Piper 1217 SW Stark Street  1968 -1971 or 1974(?); Red Garter 1974 – not gay; Oil Can Harrys – 1975 – unknown; Riddles 1975-1978 NOT GAY; Kachina Lounge 1979-1981; Bushes – 1981-1982; Stark Street Station 1982;Flossies – 1982-88; Silverado – 1988 – 2007 [moved as building was sold]. The hotel portion started receiving press coverage, notably through gay press beginning in 1971 when an ad appeared in The Fountain newspaper, December 1971.

Then a different ad appeared in The Fountain newspaper, March 1972 Page 15 shows that this was a franchise at one time with locations in Sacramento CA, Denver Co, Reno NV, and Oregon announcing Club Baths in Oregon “Rain Palace.”

Long ad appeared in The Fountain, February 1972

The lease ran out in 1985 and a new lease was negotiated with another operator with an ad that appeared in The City Open Press, October-November 1986 “The Continental Hotel & Club Baths (formerly the Majestic) invites you to the Grand Opening of the new Club Portland. Saturday, November 1st 6:00 pm.”

And on page 11 of The City Open Press, October-November 1986 a large article “Continental Club in Portland acquires Nation’s Largest Gay Health Club.

Left: Ad appeared in City Week newspaper issues like this one in the Friday, August 8, 1987 issue.

Right: Ad in Growl newspaper for “Bear Men” March/April 1995

A fun fact. National William Randolph Hearst Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Randy Shilts worked here. In the book The Journalist of Castro Street: The Life of Randy Shilts by Andrew E Stoner, in Chapter 2: “…during the summer of 1974 Shilts took an hourly wage job as the front desk clerk and “towel boy” at the Majestic Hotel and Club Bath. The Majestic, a gay bathhouse at 303 SW 12th Street in downtown Portland, catered to the closeted and openly gay men of the area. The flatiron building housing the bathhouse in the 1970s and 1980s is now a trendy boutique hotel listed on the National Register of Historic Places. During its day, the Majestic was a historic site for quick pick-ups or for what Shilts referred to as “zipless fucks,” borrowing the phrase popularized in Erica Jong’s noteworthy 1973 feminist novel, Fear of Flying. The bathhouse job had a perk perhaps only a politics and journalism junkie like Shilts could fully appreciate. Scheduled to work days and evenings, he tuned the bathhouse TVs to daily broadcasts of the House Judiciary Committee, which was considering articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. Shilts reduced his experiences down to a delightful but unpublished essay about his bathhouse encounters, including job duties that consisted primarily of enforcing strict rules to either charge older, unattractive patrons more for cubicles inside the bathhouse or get rid of drag queens (transvestites) and transsexual men who sought admission. A “toad chart” hung on the wall inside the bulletproof glass desk where Shilts sat. Unseen by patrons, the chart featured People magazine photo cutouts of people such as Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev and Attorney General John Mitchell. The chart was the bathhouse owner’s way “to convey the fact that people who resembled unattractive members of the Nixon Administration were supposed to pay $10 for the privilege of walking around an empty bathhouse in Portland, Oregon,” instead of the four dollars or eight dollars charged cuter, younger patrons. “As I began loading towels and spotted sheets into the washer, I regretted that I had not suffered such a summer job back in high school when at least I could have translated my experience into an X-rated term paper on ‘How I Spent My Summer Vacation,’” Shilts wrote. “Here I was . . . spending a good portion of my time classifying and lying to potential customers and surveying orgy rooms for people smoking, while in the TV room, the House Judiciary Committee droned on.” The bathhouse job was a last resort in order to pay rent that summer—the hoped-for journalism internships had been lost to what Shilts assumed were “more confident journalism students, with far better connections than me.” Shilts’s bathhouse job would prove ironic. A decade later, in 1984–85, Shilts was widely viewed as a bathhouse owner’s worst enemy. In 1974 he played the role of loyal employee and got an education (and active engagement) in the unbridled nature of sex between gay men who were finally set free to act as they wished behind the privacy of a bathhouse door. “For the uninitiated, a gay bathhouse is not where homosexuals go to get clean,” Shilts wrote, apparently anticipating that his article would reach a mostly heterosexual audience. “A patron can go to ostensibly sit in the steam room, but many instead spend their time wandering the hallways past the doors of little cubicles which were barely large enough to contain a mattress. If the patron wants, [he] leaves his [cubicle] door open a crack or so the wandering customers can peer in to see if they should, well, strike up at least a brief, albeit passionate, acquaintanceship.” Larger orgy rooms also existed with mattresses covering the entire floor. Checking the orgy room, ostensibly to make sure no one was smoking and creating a very real fire hazard in a room with a mattress-covered floor, provided Shilts with an overview of “our customers happily engaged in every conceivable permutation of sodomy—just as long as no one was smoking cigarettes.” The bathhouse, in Shilts’s estimation, was “altogether an institution [that] provides the perfect ambiance for that one sexual act after which humanity has so long lusted after—the zipless fuck.”44 Patrons who abstained from sex but came in, stripped down to a towel, and walked around for hours also gained Shilts’s attention. One patron, named “Mr. Businessman” by the rest of the bathhouse staff, never seemed to find a sexual partner and actually was more interested in the congressional hearings on TV than any porn playing in the place. Shilts wrote, “I often found him there, in the TV lounge, as [US Representative] Peter Rodino reigned over hearings that would only prove to Congress what the rest of the nation knew instinctively: that Richard Nixon was a lying son of a bitch who needed to be thrown out of office.” Shilts admitted running afoul of Mr. Businessman one afternoon after sharing his views that Nixon was toast—Mr. Businessman, apparently a closeted Republican, was convinced (as was Shilts’s father back home in Aurora) that “Nixon is going to come out of this smelling like a rose.” Near the end of his summer at the Majestic, Shilts’s coworkers stuck a candle in a Twinkie and wished him a happy twenty-third birthday on August 8, 1974. Now fully free of his Republican past, Shilts took it as a personal gift that Nixon took the occasion of Shilts’s birthday to announce in shame his resignation of the presidency.45 This content downloaded from 204.228.64.42 on Fri, 16 Jun 2023 15:38:23 +00:00This content downloaded from 204.228.64.42 on Fri, 16 Jun 2023 15:38:23 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

citations & references:

Majestic Hotel and Club Portland Bath, 303 S.W. 12th, December 1971 to 2007. Until its closure, it was the oldest continuing gay bathhouse in the city. It’s now owned by McMenamin’s and was restored as the Crystal Hotel, with a grand reopening in May 2011. 

According to Willamette Week, the club was "often blamed by public health officials and other community leaders as partly responsible for new waves of HIV and STD infections, though those accusations were near-impossible to prove".[2][failed verification] Just Out magazine and a McMenamins marketing director toured the shuttered club guided by a construction supervisor for the project. After the club closed, construction crew found a file cabinet full of membership and employee records. 

When the bathhouse called it quits, it left highly private records — containing members’ and employees’ full contact information and, sometimes, copies of their driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and other identification — vulnerable to theft and duplication. 

Additionally, the guide told them his crew found 100–150 hypodermic needles. When Just Out reached out to the club's former owner and inquired about the records, the magazine says Dick Lawson claimed, "There is nothing that remains of the bath records at this time." McMenamins retained the records and when Lawson was advised of this, he responded, "That's history. The building was sold a year and a half ago, and I will not comment further."[3][7]

The Club Continental Baths (formerly the Cornelius Hotel), 531 S.W. Park, 1978-1985. A popular bathhouse that opened in the mid-1970s, it featured erotic black-light drawings on the walls, an orgy room, jacuzzi, and a number of individual rooms for private assignations. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, this bathhouse was considered one of the cleanest in the city, and it became popular location for community fundraisers and all-male socials. The rise of AIDS epidemic and the fear surrounding the disease helped to bring its closure due to lack of business. As the Cornelius Hotel (built in 1907), it was the home during the Vice Clique Scandal of arrestee Herman Smith. Smith got word of a police sweep for involved men and hurriedly fled his room, leaving behind a number of photos and letters that helped the police identify and arrest a number of other men in the city. 

This publicly acknowledged use was part of a major transformation in the city. Prior, Portland - like most cities across the United States - actively persecuted homosexuals with the active enforcement of laws that banned such behavior. A riot at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in June 1969 asserted gay opposition to this persecution and directly led to the modern gay rights movement. A proliferation of gay activism across the country immediately followed in the years after Stonewall. In Portland, one manifestation was the rise of gay-oriented businesses, such as the "Club Baths," and the area immediately surrounding became an entertainment district known as "the gay triangle". Over the next several years, gay rights became more consolidated such that by the 1Oth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 1979, Portland organized the city's first Gay Pride March and saw the formation of groups like the Portland Gay Men's Chorus. Although the "Club Baths" became the "Continental Hotel and Baths" in 1983 and then finally "Club Portland," the building remained a gay bathhouse and club from the 1970s until it closed in 2007. ln 2008, the building was sold and vacated. Current ownership intends to return the hotel to its original use, redeveloping the property using state and federal historic preservation tax credits. oregondigital:df67rc34s 

There is a somewhat similar story: 

Per the https://www.mcmenamins.com/crystal-hotel/discover/history: The hotel building, constructed in 1911, initially housed auto parts stores on the ground floor and residential lodgings above. In 1946, an Asian family, the Zakoji family took over management of the hotel, renamed The Majestic. After having spent the previous several years in an internment camp, here the Zakojis cultivated a homelike atmosphere for a quarter century, attracting many long-term residents who became their friends. 

The ground floor, however, was a different story. After WWII, when the former tire shops gave way to a raucous night club, inhibitions were dropped and a new attitude of "anything goes" reigned. 

During a 25-year run as Club Mecca and then the Desert Room, it was a wide-open gambling, dancing, drinking, hook-up joint. People from all walks came to indulge and have fun. Its notoriety peaked in 1957 during a federal investigation of racketeering in Portland. Back in Washington, D.C., the wisecracking, elusive testimony of club owner Nate Zusman to lead counsel Robert F. Kennedy amused the nation. 

More recently, this block emerged as the Gay Triangle, the heart of the city's queer scene. The Majestic Hotel took on a new persona in 1971 as The Club Baths. Its creatively themed facilities were named "Best Playground of the Year." Meanwhile the old first-floor nightclub became a popular gay-owned gathering spot. First called Kuchina's, it transitioned through a number of owners and names, ending with Silverado, which closed in 2007. Throughout, Stephen J. Boden, better known as Flossie, remained an iconic and unifying figure. 

The triangle-shaped building, wedged between Stark and Burnside on SW 12th, became a men-only bathhouse back in 1971. As the gay district grew around it, the four-story establishment — first named Club Baths, then Club Portland — anchored the several blocks of gay bars and gay-owned businesses known as the Triangle Scene. Now the gay neighborhood has dispersed (for the most part), and on May 3, the old steam rooms will open as McMenamins' 51-room Crystal Hotel and Zeus Café. 

Back in ancient history (that would be 2007), Club Portland billed itself as the Gateway to the Gayway, advertising its "gloryhole maze" and "porn-stage theater" on its website. Male patrons forked over a $30 membership fee to enter, then paid by the hour for rooms or to use the sauna. The club closed suddenly four years ago. When construction crews started ripping apart the building, they found a filing cabinet full of membership records of Club Portland patrons, along with over 100 hypodermic needles and an actual Army Jeep in the basement, Just Out reported. 

"It was a nightmare," remembers one former patron. "You went to meet someone and fuck in a little room and get out…It was well known as being a very easy place to score drugs." 

The place was made for easy hookups, but it wasn't as filthy as people play it up to be, counters Gary Lee, who worked as a janitor and doorman at Club Portland from 2004 to 2006. The sheets and floors of the club's 50 rooms were cleaned regularly, and the Cascade AIDS Project provided free condoms to the hundreds of patrons who entered the doors every week. 

"Yes, it was run down and the building was in disrepair — you wouldn't eat off the floor. But I wouldn't say it was a cesspool," says Lee, who liked working in the club's laidback atmosphere, "There's definitely tasteful ways to go about commemorating its history. In its glory day, it was kind of the linchpin of that whole Triangle Scene that's no longer there." 

The rundown building was worth only $375,000 when it sold in 1996. But by the time development company Gerding Edlen bought it in 2007, they had to cough up $2.25 million for the deed. Gerding Edlen then flipped the building to McMenamins for $3 million in 2008. The hotel (replete with salt-water soaking pool and room rates starting at $85) was supposed to open in winter 2009, but the economic collapse put the project on hold. 

[One major obstacle in their vision for the area was Club Portland, a gay bathhouse operating at Southwest Twelfth and West Burnside since 1971. For starters, the building’s windows were boarded up, creating a visually unappealing presence on an important corner. Furthermore, the management of Whole Foods across the street complained of a steady flow of drugs from the bathhouse to the grocery store’s bathroom. While the grocery store addressed the problem by locking the restroom at all times and requiring customers to use a code printed on receipts to gain access, Gerding Edlen took a different approach. In 2007, they bought the bathhouse and set about finding a buyer who would redevelop the property in accordance with their vision for the area. That buyer came in the form of Northwest restaurant, bar and hotel chain, McMenamins. Per Portland Archives and Records. Public Policy and Sexual Geography in Portland, Oregon, 1970-2010 Elizabeth Morehead Portland State University]

Surprisingly, McMenamins historian Tim Hills doesn't shy away from the building's less reputable history, not even for an instant. "Thousands of people have been through those doors," says Hills, "The gay triangle era is probably the most historically significant thing that happened in that building." 

Hills points out that its recent reputation is just one chapter in a long list of infamous uses for the building. When the space first opened as a nightclub during World War II, it was the Outlaw Club run by notorious local vice and gambling overlord Al Winter. It was Club Mecca, then the Desert Room; in the '80s, the place was run by a "big-hearted gay man named Flossie" who would host Thanksgiving potlucks, says Hills. 

McMenamins' plan is to incorporate the building's history through paintings of its different eras. It also hopes to display some of its more memorable artifacts, including DJ setlists from the Silverado nightclub, some of the whiskey flasks found stuffed in the bathhouse walls, and, of course, the basement "dungeon gates" and Army Jeep. "The Jeep will return," says Hills, "the only question is where to put it." https://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/in-the-shadows/Content?oid=3350426 Feb 10, 2010 

Per book A Curious and Peculiar People by David Grant Kohl, Page 401: In the basement it is known to be called “Zippers” playroom 

Had its own “gay” listing – handout “Majestic Hotel and Club Baths of Portland presents PORTLAND” 1983. [copy in calendar/events in Portland folder] 

2003 Chuck Palahniuk mentioned Randy in his book Fugitives and Refugees on page 107 Getting Off:How to Knock Off a Piece In Portland, “Portland’s last gay bathhouse is the Club Portland, officially called the Continental Hotel Club and Baths, four floors of sticky fun at SW Twelfth Avenue and W Burnside Street. Formerly called the Majestic Hotel, the club features wide-screen theatre for Hollywood feature films on the second floor. The third floor has a murky, dark sex max full of crotch-high “glory holes.” And the fourth floor has a porn theatre showing continuous man-on-man smut, plus a stage and sex sling for live performances. [further in the article] Admission to Club Portland also gets you into the basement jack-off club, Zippers Down.” 

2003 Chuck Palahniuk mentioned XES in his book Fugitives and Refugees on page 114 Getting Off: How to Knock Off a Piece in Portland, “Located in the basement of the Club Portland bathhouse, the “paramilitary” sex club Zippers Down is at 303 SW Twelfth Avenue. Comprising most of the city block, the basement is decorated in army-surplus everything, with barrack bunks and acres of camo netting hung to create the full M.A.S.H. effect. The management has even hauled a real WiIlies Jeep down here and wired it so the headlights work. Porno plays on monitors overhead, and the fantasy is complete. Hours are noon to 6 am.” 

Cited in THE GUIDE Magazine www.guidemag.com October 2005 in article PORTLAND Oregon’s Little Gem page 30: Club Portland (303 SW 12th, at Stark) is the Rose City’s largest bathhouse, open “24/7/365 Smack in the middle of the gayest area, surrounded by gay bars. They offer all the facilities you need: lockers, a refreshment canteen, hotel-room accommodations, a shower area. There is free internet and Wi-fi access here, four-channel porn, plus big-screen movie features to patrons is the basement playground “Boot Camp.” This paramilitary-themed sex club provides a venue for fantasy encounters and adventures with like-minded men. Club Seattle memberships are honored here, and they have short-term memberships, and special rates for guys 18-25, too. See their website for details. 

It closed June 17, 2007, it would been in operation for 36 years, making it one of the oldest continuing gay bathhouse in the city. Now is owned by McMenamin’s and was restored as the Crystal Hotel, with a grand reopening in May 2011. 

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1973 under Hotel/Baths - name Majestic Hotel & Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1974 under Hotel/Baths with connotation: * - Very popular- name Majestic Hotel & Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1975 with connotation: * - Very popular - name Majestic Hotel & Baths

• Cited in Jeff Taylor’s Gay Guide for the Pacific Northwest – Summer 1975 edition, page 15 “Steambaths, lodging in hotel, Buddy Nights and discounts available.”

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1976 with connotation: * - Very popular- name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1977 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1978 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1979 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths and note: (Needs a good scrub job)

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1980 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Cited in Counseling Center for Sexual Minorities Referral and Resources Book Revised April 1, 1980, under Men’s Baths with notation – 24 hours, closed-circuit TV, sun deck, pool table, TV lounge, hotel rooms, spa rooms, lockers WIDE AGE RANGE

• Cited in Gay Areas Private Telephone Directory, Pacific Northwest Page 15 Winter 1981-82

• Possibly 1980/81 Listed on Darcelle’s “PATRONS – Round Trip to Lake Tahoe – Courtesy of ‘HELLO RENO” Miss Terri, Darcelle XV, and Directors Furniture]

• Cited in Gay Areas Private Telephone Directory, Pacific Northwest Page 15 Winter 1981-82

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1981 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1982 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1983 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Ad in Cascade Voice Newspaper, March 11, 1983 “Also in Reno, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1984 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1985 with connotation: * - Very popular – name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1986 with connotation: * - Very popular – and (IGHC) name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1987 with connotation: * - Very popular – and (IGHC) name Majestic Hotel & Club Baths

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1988 with connotation: * - Very popular – (IGHC), (YC) with the name Club Portland

• Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1989 with connotation: * - Very popular – (IGHC), (H) (YC) (Spa) with the name Club Portland (A Continental Club Bath) and with a large one-page ad.

• Listed in Orange folder FALL 1983 and revised in 1987– Answering Service – possibly like the resource directory developed by the Counseling Center for Sexual Minorities Referral and Resources Book and what has been used with their revised April 1, 1980, edition. This place was cited under Baths. With notes: Closed circuit TV, sundeck, TV lounge, hotel rooms, steam rooms, lockers, “Executive Rooms”, generally like motel rooms, up to $22.00 a day. 

The three plans shown below are from 1975-78 when the Riddles bar was in operation and how the building was laid out - no 4th-floor plans are available. Far Right bottom is a ‘simple’ drawing 1973.

Above are the plans submitted in 1986 for the remodel of the hotel/bathhouse space. Here are various exterior photos.

LEFT: During the AIDS crises Club Portland tried to make it fun to visit the venue, but also ensured that caution and protection were necessary per COPS newspaper Feb - March 1987.

BELOW notice that Club Baths/Majestic Hotel was part of the Independent Gay Health Clubs of American IGHC organization.

2023-2024 Hotel Alma is already on the National Register of Historic Places. There has been an addendum to the nomination to add the LGBTQ history. See attached. Also, check out: article in The Oregonian newspaper The National Register of Historic Places has allowed the addendum therefore the LGBTQ history of this building is the second LGBTQ Oregon business placed on the NPS - the first being Darcelle XV Showplace in 2021.

Erv Lind Field and Majestic Hotel & Club Baths National Register Nominations accepted by the National Park Service

In May 2024, the National Park Service accepted our National Register nominations for the Majestic Hotel & Club Baths and Erv Lind Field! This is huge, as Portland, Oregon is now among the top leaders in landmarking LGBTQ+ sites, next to California and New York.