Michael Fesco, whose trendsetting clubs on Fire Island and later in Manhattan gave gay men a place to gather, dance and explore sexually at a time when homosexuality was largely unwelcome in mainstream society, died on April 11 in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 84.

His friend Tony Powell, who worked for Mr. Fesco on Sea Tea, a gay party cruise around Manhattan that he began organizing in the 1990s, confirmed the death.

Mr. Fesco gave a jolt of energy to the gay scene in 1970, when he opened the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove, a gay community on Fire Island. He had recently visited the Sanctuary, a discothèque on West 43rd Street in Manhattan with a largely gay male clientele.

“I said, ‘I’ve just got to do something like this!’ ” Mr. Fesco said in an interview for “Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979,” a 2003 book by Tim Lawrence. “I sat there in the rafters mesmerized by the people on the dance floor.”