Squatters occupy $1.8million former strip club in Portland

Squatters in Portland now occupy a $1.8million building that housed the city's first strip club until two years ago.

For months squatters have lived in the building's upper floors, moving electrical appliances in through a second floor window and using a screw gun and crowbar to reenter the building whenever they are locked out.

According to residents, one of the squatters carries a machete and ushers women in and out of the property at all hours of the day.

'It's pretty much a cat and mouse game,' Bassel Ayoub, one of the build's new owners, told Oregon Live. 'We don't like this any more than the neighbors do. I don't know what else to do at this point.' 

The building is now representative of the fight to help clean up parts of Portland where policies have let some run amok.  

The building was a former hotel and home to one of city's oldest and most celebrated strip clubs, Mary's. Singer Courtney Love famously danced in the club, according to the Willamette Week. 

Squatters in Portland are now occupying a $1.8million building that housed the city's first strip club until two years ago

Mary's, sometimes referred to as 'Portland's first topless', operated in the building until jsut a couple of years ago

The upper levels of the three-story brick building were once the Stewart Hotel, which until a few years ago was a shelter for Portland's low-income residents.

In 2021, tenants of the building sued their building's owners, alleging squalid conditions. Later that year it was bought by Ayoub and his business partner, local dentist Hadi Nouredine.

Ayoub says the building is still hooked up to power despite the fact he has stopped paying electricity bills. 'I haven't paid a single bill,' he told the outlet. 'That's still a mystery to me.'

Ayoub said he and Nouredine are now discussing plans to either renovate the entire building or tear down the upper two stories and keep the street-level space for retail.

But he said either option could take three to five years to complete.

Ayoub said he's made multiple attempts to remove squatters and secure the building but they just return. Photos published by Oregon Live show a padlocked ladder restricting access to the fire escape and metal latches installed over the ground-level entrance. 

The building is on Southwest Eighth Avenue, which faces Ankeny Square and is next door to a drug-and-alcohol-free residence, heightening tensions.

Singer Courtney Love (pictured) famously danced in Mary's Club in Portland 

Owners Ayoub said Nouredine said they are now discussing plans to either renovate the entire building or tear down the upper two stories but that it could take up to five years

'They keep putting up metal strips but one of the guys has a drill gun or screw gun and just opens up the building,' Frank Corrado, who lives in the Ankeny Square Apartments, told Oregon Live.

'It will only take a crowbar to pry that off,' he said.

The building has a long and seedy history. The Steward Hotel was mentioned in local newspapers occasionally over the decades and usually in relation to petty crimes.

In its last years, it was home to low-income tenants, including the elderly and disabled. 

'I've toured a lot of slums and it was the worst place I've ever set foot in,' said Michael Fuller, an attorney for the former tenants who sued in 2021.

'Simply put, it was not safe.' 

Mary's was home to various performances of singers and comics in the club in the 1950s. Love worked at the club as did Christine Jorgensen, who was known for having sex reassignment surgery.