Where the 1% go to jerk off....

Boho Manor, the Monte Rio hotel where Bohemian Club members use Wi-Fi

By Ashley Harrell

The rumors about what goes on during the Bohemian Club’s annual summer retreat at Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio are always juicy. Nudity and creepy robes! World leaders urinating in the redwoods! Something about burning an owl! 

But according to employees at Boho Manor, the closest hotel to the secretive 2,700-acre compound, the reality is not what you’d expect. How do they know what goes on at the event hosted by a secretive 150-year-old men’s club made up of former presidents, celebrities and business tycoons? Well, during the encampment that takes place every summer, Bohemian Club members stop by the hotel constantly.

“Some of them do get rooms here and stay, of course, to be able to use the Wi-Fi,” assistant manager Lori Bradley says. “And so, they'll work all day or most of the day. … They'll pop in and out. … When the bar opens, they might have a cocktail and then head on over to the grove for the evening.”

Although it might surprise some of the folks around Monte Rio who protested the Bohemian Grove event for decades, holding signs that say things like “Expose and defeat the ruling elite,” Bradley’s experiences with club members have all been positive. 

“They're just guys you know, hanging out doing their work thing, and then when they come in, they're always very friendly with us,” she says. “... They're very personable with all of the staff. We know a lot of them by name. We know a lot of them because they come over and over again.” 

Hotel owner Pierre Erasmus said he’s happy to provide services that club members lack at their clandestine compound. “All the grove members come to us for coffee and for internet, because they don't have internet there,” Erasmus says. “They're not allowed devices in there because it’s very secret … so that's why they keep it sort of nondigital. And then they all come to my hotel to have a little digital break and catch up with the emails and so on.”

Although Bradley and Erasmus wouldn’t name names out of respect for club members’ privacy, Erasmus did have quite a bit to say about the Bohemian Club and the retreat's attendees, most of it glowingly positive.

“When each of those members enters my hotel — and they don’t even know I’m the owner because I just stand behind the reception — they immediately treat me with respect and greet me gracefully,” he says. 

They often ask if they can pay for a parking spot or for using the Wi-Fi, he says, and they may even stick a $10 bill in Erasmus’ hand. He always turns it down and instead says, “You don’t have to, sir. Just come have a drink later on.”

When asked if there are any exceptions, Erasmus admits that unpleasantries do occasionally arise. “Here and there, you will have someone that’s invited by a grove member,” he says. “... They might be the one that’s a little bit loud and obnoxious.”

What stands out more in Erasmus’ mind, he says, are encounters with famous people who inspire him and whom he believes Monte Rio is lucky to host. “I’ve met the most amazing actors,” he says. “People who won awards. And they would sit there next to the fire pit, and they would just talk to me about, you know, life stuff. … That made my week, having someone huge, who won an Academy Award, being able to just talk to me for an hour about the simple things in life.”

Although Erasmus again declined to name names, some award-winning actors who have reportedly been at Bohemian Grove include Clint Eastwood, Bing Crosby and Charlton Heston. Other high-profile attendees have included Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Walter Chronkite, Jack London and Mark Twain. These days, Bohemian Club members reportedly pay a $25,000 initiation fee to join, plus yearly dues. 

Erasmus is aware that many locals in Monte Rio aren’t particularly fond of the Bohemian Club, and he’s heard plenty of negative talk about the Bohemian Grove event. “It’s like a frat party,” a worker from the town’s market, who requested anonymity, told SFGATE last week. “It’s a bunch of artists, movie stars and politicians getting drunk and falling down the hill, and no one can take pictures. … The big black cars come every year, and I’ve seen them all week. Tons of Porsches and Ferraris.”

Erasmus believes jealousy drives that negativity and results in missed opportunities to benefit from world leaders hanging out around a small town. He wishes more people would recognize that Bohemian Grove is inextricably tied to the history of Monte Rio and that the event is a major economic driver in an area where other opportunities are lacking. “I think the people of Monte Rio are not doing enough for the grove,” he says. “They should be more welcoming to them.”

The Bohemian Club set up shop in the area in the 1890s and then gradually purchased the 2,700 acres that now make up Bohemian Grove. According to Erasmus, the establishment of Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio was not random or accidental. There was a lot of interest in the area from the Hollywood elite, he says, including Bing Crosby, who starred in the Academy Award-winning 1942 film, “Holiday Inn.” Parts of the film, including the famous “White Christmas” scene, were filmed at the Village Inn, which was the old name for Boho Manor.

When Erasmus bought it last year, he fixed up the 14-room riverfront hotel and changed the name to align it more with local history and with Bohemian Grove itself. “They have a rightful place here, because they were some of the first investors in this area,” Erasmus says, adding that he believes most of Monte Rio is in one way or another funded by the Bohemian Club.

Not everything about the club impresses Erasmus, though. For one thing, he thinks it's lacking in diversity and should include women. For another, he’d like to see younger members showing up. “Of the 50 or 100 people that I've met from the grove, I can probably say that all of them were 55 and upwards,” he says. 

The hotel handyman, Daniel Burdick, has been living and working around Monte Rio for the past 15 years and used to be suspicious of Bohemian Grove. Back then, he says, he had no friends working there and no firsthand knowledge of the retreat. Instead, most of his information came from conspiracy theorists’ videos he had watched. In recent years, he started meeting attendees at Boho Manor and realized the videos and protests were off base. 

“None of it really lined up, because it’s not a negative event. It’s more like a commodity to the community,” Burdick says. “They bring money and awesomely talented superstars and put on shows, and it provides a lot of work for people for a few weeks out of the year.”

The people who work in landscaping and construction have worked for months thanks to Bohemian Grove, Burdick says.

From what Burdick has heard from friends who work at Bohemian Grove, the members themselves are almost always pleasant to be around. But in trying to uphold a certain standard, the management is sometimes “just kind of rude to the staff,” he says.

Bohemian Grove valets filed a lawsuit this summer alleging unfair labor practices, such as 16-hour workdays and failure to pay overtime and minimum wages.

Although Burdick hasn’t run into too many celebrities around town or at Boho Manor this year, he did have a sighting of some band members from Duran Duran and Steely Dan. “They were jogging in the morning on a back street near our house,” he says.

Boho Manor bartender Melissa Palu fondly recalls seeing Jimmy Buffett ride by her on a bicycle a few years back and has only good things to say about serving grove attendees at the hotel. “They tip well, need reasonable quiet (if possible), are definitely low-maintenance as patrons, and tip well,” she says. Did she mention they tip well?

For assistant manager Bradley, it’s always fun to watch as guests pepper club members with questions at the bar. People are dying to know what really goes on at the secretive event, she says, and sometimes members indulge them.

“The member will just say, ‘Oh yes, it’s all true. We’re sacrificing animals,’” Bradley says. “And then there’s a lot of giggling.”