Dennis Hof

Dennis Allan Hof (October 14, 1946 – October 16, 2018) was an American businessman and politician. He owned seven legal brothels in Nevada, most notably the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Hof was also a Republican candidate in 2018 for the Nevada Assembly, to which he was posthumously elected less than one month after his death.

Before entering into the brothel business, Hof owned gas stations, first in Arizona and later in Nevada.

Hof purchased and remodeled The Moonlite Bunny Ranch in 1992, a brothel that had been founded in 1955; he then purchased a second brothel, Kitty's, and renamed it The Love Ranch North. Hof later purchased two additional brothels from longtime Nye County brothel proprietor Joe Richards: the Cherry Patch in Crystal, Nevada, renamed the Love Ranch Vegas, and the Cherry Patch II in Amargosa Valley, Nevada, renamed the Alien Cathouse. On September 8, 2018, it was announced that the Alien Cathouse had been sold to business owner Raman Sharma.

Despite Nevada laws banning brothel advertising, Hof maintained a high profile to create publicity for his brothels. He was the president of the Nevada Brothel Owners' Association and its lobbyist; the Bunny Ranch is the closest brothel to the state capital, Carson City.

Hof operated a website; the "working girls" are encouraged to cultivate online relationships with both potential and past clients. He often appeared on talk shows, including Oprah Winfrey, The Today Show, The View, Fox News, Howard Stern, Lex and Terry, and many others. Hof employed adult film stars, including Sunset Thomas with whom he also had a romantic relationship. He also gave free offers to soldiers returning from duty.

In early 2009, due to the recession, State Senator Bob Coffin (D) proposed legalizing prostitution statewide for tax purposes. Hof was prominently featured in a number of media reports saying he would expand into Las Vegas given the opportunity, and was looking at some closed casinos as property.^{[citation needed]} However, the Nevada lawmakers chose not to consider the proposal of statewide legal prostitution during that legislative session.

Hof and the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel were featured in the HBO series Cathouse, which ran from 2002 to 2014. Two documentary series followed: Cathouse: The Series premiered in 2005, and Cathouse 2: Back in the Saddle appeared in 2007. Hof appeared prominently throughout the various Cathouse episodes and specials, which gained notoriety for inviting viewers to watch the inner workings of a legal house of prostitution, as well as the life of a number of the working girls, borrowing reality television techniques, such as camera-only interviews and staged spontaneity.

Hof appears as himself in an "underground" mall shop called "Pro-Life Sex" in the 2014 indie film Alongside Night. In 1998, Hof was in the Hughes Brothers documentary American Pimp, where notably he was the only white man the brothers interviewed.