by Whatsblem the Pro

Photo by Consumptionblog

Big news in Gerlach this week as real estate magnate Bruno Selmi, the Ted Turner of Northern Nevada, puts Bruno’s Country Club up for sale at a whopping 1.5 million dollars. The property is well-maintained and consists of a bar, a restaurant, a 53-unit motel, and a mobile home/RV park.

Selmi came alone to America on a boat from Italy at a tender age, leaving the post-war Old World behind for a life of better prospects. He wandered the States, picking up odd jobs and cooking for a living, until he settled in Gerlach and opened a restaurant.

After his first venue in Gerlach burned down, he opened Bruno’s Country Club in 1953, and has presided over the place (and the town) with little to no competition to worry about ever since. Selmi has gone from success to success in the intervening years; he must own at least half the businesses in town, and they say as a commercial entity, he was second only to the railroad for decades. When Burning Man moved from a San Francisco beach to the Black Rock Desert, Bruno got pushed to third place, at least seasonally, but his business interests began to boom.

If you had to guess what the secret to Bruno Selmi’s success might be, luck would no doubt figure prominently in your mind, but you would be slighting the man for his hard work and thrift. He still drives the Jeep Cherokee he bought new in the ’80s – the receipt is on the wall in his restaurant – and he never misses a day of work at the Country Club. He even tends the bar from time to time. . . and Bruno Selmi is a multimillionaire.

The townsfolk of Gerlach seem to love him and his place. “Bruno’s a genuine Gerlach icon,” one tells me. “He likes to play surly, but he’s a good guy. He throws free chukar bird feeds for the locals in season, and lots of us come together to make ravioli for him by hand. It’s sort of a town tradition. He’s like our unofficial mayor.”

Bruno and friends enjoy some world-famous ravioli. Photo: RenoJohn

Thanks to Burning Man and the annual gathering and diaspora of burners from all around the globe, the ravioli at Bruno’s place – a hundred miles from anywhere, in a town with a population under five hundred – is genuinely world-famous. The service is notorious, too, but Bruno is cherished for his cantankerous demeanor. One Yelper described the place as “an oasis in the desert” with “a dash of Stockholm syndrome.”

With all the turmoil, secrecy, and misinformation swirling around the Burning Man event, it’s hard to say what the sale of Bruno’s Country Club portends. There has already been some talk online to the effect that Bruno must know something; speculation is that Burning Man will be moving soon, and Bruno is getting out while the getting is good. As an explanation it sounds legit enough, but unnecessary: Bruno Selmi is no longer a young man, and it seems perfectly reasonable for him to want to retire. Indeed, the real estate listing at BizBuySell contains an entry that says simply “Reason Selling: Retirement.”

No matter how you slice it, it’s the end of an era. . . and who will feed DPW?