Zoning Law Makes Sadomasochist Club a Naked Truth

After using a desktop computer to figure out his employees’ commissions, minus deductions for taxes and the health plan, James Hillier began printing out and signing the payroll checks--one of the most important tasks of this entrepreneur’s week.

“I have a lot of people who depend on me,” Hillier said. “Just like any other normal business.”

Outside his office, some of the 28 people on the payroll waited for their checks. In another room, young women in exotic lingerie lounged on black couches or sat on the floor waiting for customers whose fantasies would be fulfilled by a good beating.

Welcome to the Chateau, an incongruous meeting of business and bondage located on a North Hollywood industrial street in a building that once housed a commercial bakery.

An American flag stood in one corner of Hillier’s small, windowless office. On the wall hung a framed poster commemorating the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 1955 world championship season. There was a certificate of appreciation for support of an anti-child-abuse program and a darkly painted portrait of a nude woman--in bondage.

It’s a naked and unashamed enterprise that is all perfectly legal--within strict guidelines. Last week a zoning hearing officer granted Hillier’s club the first conditional-use permit in Los Angeles for a sadomasochist establishment.

The three-month permit process brought protests from neighboring businesses, politicians and police, but Hillier had done his zoning homework. His permit application was granted. Now he and his employees hope the publicity will fade, leaving them to go about the business of discreetly serving their male customers--4,000 by their count.

“We are trying to get this to die down,” said a woman named Shyloh, a longtime employee of Hillier who acted as his spokeswoman last week. “One of the things we provide our clients is discretion.”

That may be so. But Hillier and his spokeswoman have not shied from defending what they claim is the Chateau’s role in society or its record as a good and law-abiding neighbor. Police acknowledge that they have gone undercover to the new Chateau location and have made no arrests. But they remain skeptical of the club’s ability to establish itself in the neighborhood without a negative impact.

Hillier, 59, has operated the club for 15 years, moving it repeatedly from Hollywood-area locations when it ran into community opposition or afoul of zoning laws. After finally locating this year in the old Barbara Ann Bakery building on Atoll Avenue, he said his business will be in North Hollywood “another 20 years.”

During an interview conducted before he received the conditional-use permit, the gray-haired and bearded Hillier described his efforts to be a straight arrow in a business that by its nature attracts the disapproval of large segments of society.

Hillier said he has the insurmountable task of distancing his club from other sexual-encounter businesses, such as nude modeling salons, massage parlors and others that police say act as fronts for prostitution.

“Because we are in a similar field, we are lumped together,” Hillier complained. “The minute you use the words ‘sexual encounter,’ people think prostitution. . . .

“This is not a front for prostitution. Our members don’t come here for that.”

What they come for, Hillier and Shyloh said, is a chance to act out fantasies involving “consensual exchanges of authority”--at a rate of $100 per half-hour. The old bakery’s ovens have been removed and replaced by small “encounter” rooms furnished with pillories, leather straps and belts, even a saddle on a sawhorse in one room. There are leg irons, whips and masks available, but customers can bring their own equipment as long as it is deemed safe by the management.

Customers choose whether they want to be submissive or dominant. And each is first interviewed by the woman he has chosen for the encounter to determine what kind of scenario he is interested in creating, said Shyloh, who worked as both a submissive and a dominant at the club for several years before retiring recently.

There is nudity but no sex acts or actual pain are allowed, the club’s operators claim. They insist that all activities at the Chateau are play-acting, despite complaints from neighbors near the previous Chateau locations about hearing cries of anguish, and past advertisements in sex-oriented publications that touted the female employees as “dedicated and truly into B&D;,” as bondage and discipline/domination is referred to.

“The girls at the Chateau are not victims--I don’t know of anybody who has ever been harmed,” said Shyloh, who is in her 30s.

Still, precautions are taken. There are no locks on the encounter room doors, and each room has an intercom connected to the club’s office, Shyloh said. The women are given code words to yell if an encounter turns painful, or a customer demands sex or wants to use drugs.

Shyloh said staff members usually come to the Chateau after hearing of it by word of mouth, though the club occasionally runs ads in sexually oriented publications. “They come to us,” she said.

The women are paid by commission, receiving a “high percentage” of the money paid by customers for their sessions, and also accept tips, Shyloh said. Some women make several hundred dollars a week and some make very little, depending on how many sessions they do.

Customers who are interested in real pain or sex are asked to leave the club, and their $10 memberships are canceled, Shyloh said.

Experts in sexual behavior generally agreed that bondage most often involves fantasy and no injury, and while the sessions are sexual in nature, acts of sexual intercourse are not always intrinsic to them.

“Bondage with consent is not harmful,” said Wardell Pomeroy, a retired sexologist and co-author of the Kinsey reports on sexual behavior published in 1948 and 1951.

Debora Phillips, a behavior therapist who is co-director of USC’s anxiety disorder clinic, said adult sadomasochist desires can come from many childhood experiences, ranging from being spanked by an adult, to being chastised by a beautiful teacher.

“This is a conditioned sexual behavior,” Phillips said. “It’s much more commonly practiced than the average person believes. One need not be a child molester or a killer to engage in it. As long as it is voluntary, we believe it is perfectly normal behavior.”

Hillier said he is cooperative with vice officers and has no problem with their undercover visits to the club “every weekend.”

Lt. Paul Marks, head of the Hollywood vice unit, said he does not discuss whether a business has been investigated.

At last month’s zoning hearing, nearby business operators said the bondage parlor would degrade the area--no matter how low a profile it had. The critics fear that drug users and prostitutes will be drawn to the neighborhood.

“I am very concerned,” said Renee Dorion, who owns a nearby costume shop. “I don’t know how in the world it can be classified as anything other than prostitution.”

But community protests failed to derail Hillier’s request for a permit because he located in one of the few spots in the city where industrial zoning also allows for so-called “sexual encounter establishments.”

The permit requires Hillier to operate under 19 regulations. Among them is a requirement that all activities be conducted inside and not be heard from outside the building.