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Man's Country is one of the "grand old" bathhouses you've heard about. Celebrating its thirtieth
anniversary in 2003, its reputation is legendary. Our physical building was built in 1907 as a
lodge hall for a fraternal/social organization. From its inception it had a somewhat sordid story.
Acquired by Chuck Renslow and Dom Orejudos in 1972, the building underwent
a major renovation to bring it into code compliance and add the things that
make a bathhouse fun. During this construction they discovered the remains of a
speakeasy and gambling casino. Moveable walls hid shelves
once lined with slot-machine, card rooms contained back
staircases allowing patrons quick access to other parts of
the building. Our huge steam room started out as a vault.
And we actually found a human skeleton under the stage.
(The medical quality piece had been apparently used in
part of their old initiation ceremony. For many, many years until its theft, it
was on display in the "Pit" at the old Gold Coast Leather Bar at 501 N. Clark St.)
Here's some trivia:
Together with Tom of Finland, Etienne is considered one of the two great masters of gay
leather art. Etienne's real name was Dom Orejudos (one of our founders). You can see more
of his art on the walls of our neighbor bar, the Chicago Eagle.
Our "Music Hall" on the second floor has its own history. Starting life as the lodge hall or meeting
room for the fraternity, we used it for entertainment. For years we hosted a variety of live shows
often as much as four nights per week. In those days acts like Wayland Flowers and Madam,
Charles Pierce and Sally Rand played the room. All the big divas were there, Thelma Houston,
Viola Wills and Pamela Stanley to name a few. From 1987 through 1992 the room served as the
Bistro Too dance floor during which time all those divas came back to play our stage, as did Boy
George, the Village People and Divine. (Sadly, ours was Divine's last live show before his death.)
In 1990 this room gave birth to the
nationally known stripper troupe
the Chicago Meatpackers and
served as their home base. The
Meatpackers eventually came to be
known as the StripperBOYZ and
continued to dance at Man'sCountry.
Our shows were every Friday and Saturday nights and featured several of our SEXational StripperBOYZ
with regular appearances by the big names in XXX Gay Videos. Over the years many porn stars
have been performed on our stage! We like to say "sooner or later" everybody plays at Man's Country.
You'll enjoy our subterranean wet area designed to
look like the under belly of Paris, our massive
steam room. But our real feature is our extensive active members!
We're open 24/7 and invite you to stop in to play
when you're in the neighborhood.