Sheri’s Ranch is a licensed brothel in Nye County, Nevada, on Homestead Road near Pahrump, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. The brothel is open 24 hours a day, visitors must be at least 21 and show valid identification, and walk-ins are welcome. What separates Sheri’s from most Nevada brothels is the amount of conventional hospitality surrounding the brothel itself. The property includes a 10-room hotel, restaurant and bar, swimming pool and Jacuzzi, private themed bungalows and other specialty rooms, along with complimentary transportation from Las Vegas.
Visiting Sheri’s Ranch
An appointment isn’t required. Reservations make more sense if you’re planning to see a particular courtesan and want to ensure her availability. Sheri’s publishes a current weekly lineup and information on upcoming courtesans, which are better sources for availability than a static list on Brothel Nevada could ever be. Visitors must show identification establishing that they are at least 21 years of age before entering the establishment.
There also isn’t a standard Sheri’s Ranch price list for sexual services. The courtesans work as independent contractors and establish their own rates, with the final service and price negotiated between the courtesan and customer. Sheri’s can tell you what a hotel room or hamburger costs; it can’t give you a universal price for a party with one of the women.
For visitors coming from Las Vegas, Sheri’s currently offers complimentary round-trip transportation.
Hotel, Restaurant, Bar and Resort Amenities
Sheri’s conventional hotel and its brothel bungalows are two different things. The hotel has seven standard rooms and three themed suites, and Sheri’s specifically says hotel guests are under no obligation to use brothel services. The five private VIP bungalows, by contrast, are part of the brothel experience and are booked in connection with time spent with a courtesan. That distinction gets lost surprisingly often in descriptions of the property.
The restaurant and bar are open to the public. You don’t have to purchase a party simply to have a meal, stop in for a drink or visit the property. Sheri’s currently advertises a full restaurant and bar, pool and Jacuzzi, along with specialty spaces that include a BDSM room. Individual amenities and operating hours can change, so visit the ranch’s restaurant page for current information.
History of Sheri’s Ranch
Sheri’s Ranch in Lincoln County
The history of Sheri’s starts before Pahrump. One of the strongest surviving records is the Nevada Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Kuban v. McGimsey. The case identifies one of the appellants as “Lorraine Helms, dba Sheri’s Ranch” and says the appellants “had operated their brothels from 1970.” After Lincoln County prohibited prostitution in May 1978, Sheri’s Ranch and Judy’s Ranch ceased brothel operations and challenged the county’s authority to do so. The Nevada Supreme Court ultimately upheld the county’s authority.
That court decision does not establish that a business called Sheri’s Ranch opened on a particular day in 1970. The “from 1970” language refers collectively to the appellants and their brothels, so using it as a Sheri’s founding certificate would push the evidence farther than it goes. What the decision does establish is that Sheri’s existed in Lincoln County before the 1978 shutdown and Lorraine Helms was operating under the Sheri’s Ranch name by the time of the dispute.
Who Was Sheri?
Lorraine Helms gives us an early operator, but she doesn’t explain the name. Surviving Nye County oral histories point toward a more intriguing possibility. In her Nye County oral history, Bobbi Davis recalled that Jimmie Miltenberger had owned Sheri’s in Lincoln County, that Miltenberger and his wife divorced, and that his former wife later operated a Nye County brothel Davis remembered as Sheri’s Crystal Palace. Davis also identified June Green as Miltenberger’s sister and recalled Miltenberger and Green bringing Sheri’s into Nye County after Lincoln County eliminated its brothels.
A separate oral history with Doris M. Jackson provides a name. Jackson remembered a woman named Sherry who came from the Lincoln County brothel world, married Gene Ritchie and operated the Crystal Palace with him. Robert McCracken later incorporated the same account into his published History of Amargosa Valley, recording Sherry and Gene Richey as the couple who bought the Mecca Club, converted it into a brothel and renamed it the Crystal Palace.
Those accounts may be describing the same woman. If they are, Sherry Richey becomes a very plausible candidate for the woman behind the Sheri’s name. We have not found a marriage, divorce, licensing or contemporary newspaper record proving that Sherry Richey was Jimmie Miltenberger’s former wife, however, so the identification remains a historical hypothesis rather than an established biography. A modern story that Sheri’s was named for a favorite girl is interesting folklore, but it doesn’t carry the evidentiary weight of the surviving court record and Nye County oral histories.
From Lincoln County to Pahrump
The exact date Sheri’s began operating near Pahrump is difficult to pin down, but the surviving evidence points to the early 1980s. In The State of Sex, Nevada brothel researchers Barbara Brents, Crystal Jackson and Kathryn Hausbeck write that Sheri’s began around 1982 as a small trailer home, with a few wings added later for additional rooms. Photographer Timothy Hursley independently remembered Sheri’s as a pair of trailers before its later transformation into a resort, and a surviving 1985 photograph places the property in Pahrump by that year.
The legal chronology is less clear. A 2025 newspaper retrospective reported that 40 years earlier a district court had ruled against June Green in an effort to open Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, but we have not found the underlying court file online and the brief reference does not explain what Green was actually seeking. The available evidence reasonably places Sheri’s near Pahrump in the early 1980s while leaving the precise licensing and legal opening date unresolved.
Sheri’s Is Located in Pahrump… Sort Of
Sheri’s Ranch uses a Pahrump mailing address and is generally described as being in Pahrump. Technically, however, the brothel property sits outside the boundary of the unincorporated Town of Pahrump, in Nye County. That distinction has little practical meaning for a visitor, but it helps explain why Brothel Nevada describes Sheri’s as being near Pahrump rather than simply inside the town.
In a Nye County oral history, Tim Hafen recalled that the land that eventually became the Sheri’s property was developed through a Desert Land Entry “just outside the town boundary” and later sold to the man who started Sheri’s. Pahrump’s current legal description excludes several tracts in Section 6, Township 22 South, Range 54 East, while Nye County records place parcels held by Sheri’s ownership entities in that same section. The records we’ve found do not clearly establish why those particular boundary exclusions were drawn.
How Sheri’s Became a Brothel Resort
The transformation of Sheri’s into the property visitors know today began in earnest after its 2001 sale, but the idea of turning the ranch into something much larger had surfaced years earlier. In 1996, Sporting Houses Management Corporation filed securities materials describing plans to acquire an existing Nye County brothel along with roughly 300 adjoining acres and develop an adult resort. The Nevada Attorney General’s 1996 opinion documents that proposal. Wired later identified the target as Sheri’s Ranch and reported that the proposed acquisition fell through. The project, called Wanaleiya, was envisioned as a $100 million adult fantasy resort.
Sheri’s changed hands five years later. In The State of Sex, Brents, Jackson and Hausbeck write that Chuck Lee and other investors in Resort Entertainment Companies bought the ranch in January 2001. According to their account, the new owners spent $7 million renovating the property, redesigning the brothel and adding a hotel, sports bar and private bungalows. An Associated Press report published in 2003 independently described a $7 million expansion that had opened the previous year, including a sports bar, themed bungalows and Jacuzzi rooms.
The redevelopment changed more than the appearance of the ranch. Brents, Jackson and Hausbeck describe Sheri’s as an example of Nevada brothels beginning to court a broader tourist market. The conventional hotel was separate from the brothel, the sports bar could be entered without going through the brothel parlor, and the property was designed to attract people who might be interested in the experience without necessarily purchasing sexual services. That broader hospitality model became a defining part of the modern Sheri’s Ranch.
Was Sheri’s Nevada’s First Brothel Resort?
Calling Sheri’s Nevada’s first brothel resort would require ignoring some earlier history. Ash Meadows Lodge was combining lodging, dining, a swimming pool and prostitution decades before Sheri’s was redeveloped. Pahrump pioneer Harry Ford remembered the lodge as having motel rooms, a pool, a large hall and a good cook, with the brothel operating from a smaller building out back. Nye County historian Robert McCracken likewise records Ash Meadows Lodge as a tourist property and favored eating place before it reopened as a brothel in the 1950s.
Sheri’s appears significant for a different reason. Its early-2000s redevelopment deliberately built conventional hospitality into the identity of an established brothel. In The State of Sex, Brents, Jackson and Hausbeck describe the separate 10-room hotel, sports bar and other non-brothel services as part of an effort to attract a broader tourist market, including visitors who might come to the property without purchasing sexual services. The resort concept became part of how Sheri’s presented and operated the property.
Sheri’s also wasn’t alone in moving that direction. In 2002, plans for the new Wild Horse Canyon Ranch and Spa in Storey County included a commercial kitchen and dining facilities, sports bar, swimming pool, Jacuzzis, saunas and six bungalows. The timing suggests that some Nevada brothel operators were experimenting with a broader hospitality model during the same period, with Sheri’s among the clearest examples of that shift.
Sheri’s Ranch Today
The resort-oriented Sheri’s described at the beginning of this page took shape during the early-2000s redevelopment; it wasn’t what the ranch looked like throughout its history. For information that changes from week to week, Sheri’s maintains its own weekly lineup and a separate list of scheduled courtesans, along with current pages for the hotel, restaurant and bar, and complimentary Las Vegas transportation.
Image attribution
ID 102670695 | Nevada Brothel © Marie Kazalia | Dreamstime.com
“Ash Meadows 1” by Stan Shebs, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.