A contractor known for his work on luxury homes who co-owns a nightlife venue in San Francisco is seeking to open the city’s first traditional gay bathhouse in decades. The project is believed to be the first of its kind to be seeking formal approval from city officials to open.
Kevin Born, CEO of Ashbury General Contracting & Engineering, wants to turn the two-story building he owns at 40 12th Street into a luxurious bathhouse catering to a queer clientele. He had used the roughly 7,700 square foot space for his 25-year-old company’s headquarters and as a cabinet shop until moving with his family to Mill Valley several years ago and began working from home.
Told the property wasn’t zoned for use as a cabinet shop, even though Born said that was what it was built for, he decided to take advantage of new zoning approved in recent years to allow for the return of bathhouses marketed to men who have sex with men. An adult sex venue is allowed on that stretch of 12th Street between Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue in the first and second stories of a building.
“I feel like you go to places like West Hollywood and, man, the restaurants, bar scene, everything is cool and hip. I don’t know what the fuck is happening with the Castro, but it feels tired, old, and half ass. We are a better city than that,” said Born, 63, who is straight and used to live in the city’s Glen Park neighborhood. “My goal really is to elevate the bar.”
In his application for a conditional use permit to operate a new bathhouse at the site, Born told city planners that he wants to convert the building’s two floors and a mezzanine into a venue with “shower rooms, locker rooms, a steam room, and multiple rooms for patrons to engage in sexual activities or watch other patrons engaging in sexual activities.”
Speaking to the Bay Area Reporter by phone Tuesday, Born promised the space would not be “dingy and gross” with nary a plywood wall painted black in sight. While he is working with an architect from Mexico City to finalize the design, Born described the aesthetic he is going for as that of high-end gym chain Equinox or the Four Seasons chain whose hotels and resorts routinely earn Five-Star rankings from the Forbes Travel Guide.
“I want you to feel like it is an extension of your own home or someone’s really cool home,” said Born, who in his 20s frequented bathhouses in Los Angeles with his four gay roommates during the 1980s when they would go out partying and dancing.
Back then bathhouses served as a social gathering place for gay men in addition to being places to find sexual hookups. It was also a time when AIDS was decimating the gay community, and Born said he lost many friends to the epidemic.
“It was a period of time when gay men in America felt all this liberation and could express themselves freely. Then this epidemic hit,” recalled Born, who likened that era to “the Holocaust. It was a dark time.”
Bathhouse history
In San Francisco, the gay community was embroiled in a heated debate over whether city health officials should shutter the bathhouses as a way to halt the spread of the then little understood disease or utilize the venues as a way to educate their patrons about AIDS and how to protect themselves and their sex partners from acquiring it. Ultimately, the San Francisco Department of Public Health enacted rules in 1984 that not only banned private rooms with locked doors at bathhouses but also required staff to monitor the sex of their patrons.
The regulations resulted in gay bathhouse owners closing their doors, leaving just gay sex clubs without locked rooms for rent, with Eros in the Tenderloin currently the only one operating today. In 2020, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman pushed through an ordinance that rescinded the health code bathhouse rules.
He then introduced in 2022 another ordinance to update the city's zoning codes to allow for gay bathhouses to be situated in the city's LGBTQ neighborhoods of the Tenderloin, South of Market, and in the Castro district that Mandelman represents at City Hall. But as those interested in getting permits to open a bathhouse began inquiring with city officials about the process, it became apparent that the Board of Supervisors also needed to rescind the police code's Article 26 that also prohibited having locked rooms in bathhouses.
First added to the code in 1973, but apparently unenforced for the most part, that section of the police code also required owners of public bathhouses to keep a daily register of their patrons that at any time can be demanded to be seen by either police or a health department employee. As the B.A.R. reported last year, it was repealed in late 2024 and seen as the last hurdle to be cleared in order for gay bathhouses to reopen in San Francisco.
Born told the B.A.R. he hopes to have a hearing date before the planning commission in the next 60 days. A spokesperson for the planning department said Tuesday that Born’s application is still in intake with it so no hearing date has yet been set.
The department doesn’t track conditional use authorizations for bathhouses specifically, so it is unable to say if another such project is also seeking to be approved. Robert Goldfarb, a gay man who is executive director of the city's Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District in western SOMA, told the B.A.R. he believes that Born is the first applicant to formally seek a bathhouse permit approval.
While he has not spoken directly to Born about his project, Goldfarb recalled talking to another person who was advising Born on it some time ago. The leather district had advocated for the various bathhouse zoning updates and has been hopeful of seeing one open within its boundaries, though Born’s property is outside of it by several blocks.
“I don’t have a lot of information about it, so we are delighted to hear about this bathhouse opening or potentially opening,” said Goldfarb, who noted of the 11 people he has spoken with about opening a bathhouse since 2020, “most of those have gone away.”
He expects Born should have a relatively easy go of it in terms of winning approval for the conditional use permit he needs since the project falls within the allowable zoning parameters for a bathhouse in that part of the city. It is situated in what planners had dubbed The Hub where several new high-rise residential towers have gone up in recent years.
“With that location, I doubt he is going to get much objection from a conditional use permit hearing. I would be very surprised if he did, so I would be very optimistic for him being able to use that location for a bathhouse,” said Goldfarb.
Focus groups planned
Once the project is approved, Born told the B.A.R. he intends to hold focus groups with gay men and others to seek their input into the project. He expects it will take roughly seven months to submit architectural drawings to the city and secure the various signoffs from different departments on the plans before construction can begin.
Estimated to cost $5 million with the buildout taking 10 to 12 months, Born said he is hopeful of having the bathhouse open in time for Pride Month in 2027. Once he has the approved permit from the city, Born added he expects to easily line up investors to help finance the project.
“My vision calls for making this a flagship and going into other markets with it,” he said.
Advising him on the project are a number of his gay friends and his gay nephews. Dr. Joshua Slocum, an anesthesiologist based in Las Vegas, is married to Born’s biological nephew, whom he began dating 16 years ago. When the couple was just getting started in their careers – Slocum’s spouse works in real estate – they lived with Born rent-free and ended up working for him for a time. They also served as project managers for Born when he built The Midway, an upscale entertainment venue in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood that hosts gay circuit party events in addition to live music performances, art exhibitions, and interactive experiences.
“He’s been a mainstay in our lives,” Slocum, 36, told the B.A.R.
Initially, they were taken aback when Born first approached them about opening a bathhouse, recalled Slocum. But as they thought about it, Slocum said they realized the site made sense for such a business being it’s near stops for numerous public bus lines serving several Bay Area counties and a subway station for the city’s Muni transit system, as well as a short walk from the Civic Center station for regional transit agency BART. They also felt a bathhouse would be a commercial success in San Francisco.
“The cost of housing is high in San Francisco, so no one can host,” said Slocum, meaning many queer residents have shared living situations that can prevent them from inviting over a sexual hookup they meet via an app or at a bar. “Providing a space for someone to be able to host and meet up is critical in high housing cost markets.”
Although the San Francisco Business Times reported the name of the bathhouse as being Maze SF, both Born and Slocum told the B.A.R. it is likely to be called something else when it opens its doors.
“There will be a formal brand announcement. This is not the time,” said Slocum, adding that he has no doubt his uncle will deliver on his bathhouse plans once securing the needed city approvals. “It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when and how big.”
Got a tip on LGBTQ business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or email [email protected].
