By CLIFFORD J. LEVY 

It was 2 a.m., prime time at Limelight, and as usual the only person not dancing or ogling, drinking or gabbing, kissing or groping, was the nightclub's owner, Peter Gatien. Laser lights and house music were lashing the bodies around him, but he stood nearly motionless for minutes at a time, somberly stroking his chin as if he were eyeing a sculpture at the Met.

Mr. Gatien is the preeminent ringmaster in the city's night life circus, host to 20,000 guests a week at his four clubs, Limelight, Palladium, USA and the Tunnel. His success in this fickle trade is perhaps tied to that peculiar facet of his personality on display at Limelight: he is not the life of the party, but he knows how to throw one.

He admits that he doesn't much like to pal around with the creatures of the night-life landscape -- the models, drag queens, rockers, ravers, body piercers, grunge and hip-hop aficionados, new and used celebrities and others who clamor to cross the velvet rope into the promised land of his clubs. No one has ever heard him say, "Faaaaabulous!" (except sarcastically).

It is not that Mr. Gatien is rude, or even that, as a 40-year-old father of four with some sprigs of gray in his hair, he feels estranged from patrons many years his junior. There are just too many other things to worry about in a business that employs 700 people and takes in $20 million a year, like periodic clashes with community groups over noise and rowdy crowds.

"Most nightclubs don't last a long time," Mr. Gatien (rhymes with nation) said at his offices at USA, an $8 million homage to the 1980's and kinky sex that he opened in 1992 on West 47th Street. "Usually ownership/ management treats it like, 'Let's go in and womanize and do drugs and have fun and whatever.' They wake up three or six months down the line and see that it's not nearly as profitable as they thought."

Even Mr. Gatien's personal trademark, his black eye patch, is not an impresario's affectation, but rather the legacy of an ice hockey accident when he was a teen-ager in Cornwall, Ontario. He used the insurance money from the injury to get started.

After owning clubs around the country and in London, Mr. Gatien now limits his holdings to New York. He created Limelight and USA, but bought Palladium and the Tunnel after both had fallen on hard times.

Because of his power, it is difficult to find people in the night-life world who will criticize him. Some grumble that he caters to tourists and is not flamboyant like the owners of Studio 54 and other clubs of yore.

His clubs appear to have thrived because he is constantly rooting around for gimmicks to impress a clientele that tends to have the attention span of a 3-year-old. Limelight, housed in a former church in Chelsea, may have set a longevity record. It recently turned 10, after rebounding from a period when it was considered a fossil.

It is not just the music and lights that must titillate. It is also the design, artwork, promotions, invitations, guest lists, even bathrooms (one in the Tunnel features a huge bar shaped like a toilet).

Mr. Gatien confesses that he is not always fluent in the latest in music, fashion and design, but he has a staff of creative people, most in their 20's, who pitch him ideas. His skill seems to lie in picking those that are exciting but not too outlandish or expensive.

His latest is a $20,000 exhibit at the Tunnel devoted to food kitsch. (Invitations to the opening were sent in jewelry boxes, surrounded by french fries.) USA was so costly in part because of its 50-foot tubular slide, a V.I.P. area created by the designer Thierry Mugler, billboards depicting dominatrixes and neon signs flashing "SEX."

"Fifteen years ago, you could literally paint a room black, put a mirror ball up and everybody thought you hung the moon with it," Mr. Gatien said. "But as people get exposed to more, their demands increase."

His most important work unfolds during the day. Relations with neighborhood groups, community boards and the police have become so crucial that he has hired a former Deputy Police Commissioner, Susan D. Wagner, as full-time trouble-shooter.

Last year, when the City Council considered a bill cracking down on nightclubs, Mr. Gatien spent $50,000 on lobbying to squash it. Though he won, he remains bitter. He complains that the city wants to punish him for the sins of shady operators, even though he is rarely cited for serious violations.

"In New York City, we don't manufacture much anymore," he said. "What do we do well? Service, entertainment. What is frustrating is that we are basically a small industry and we are treated as second-class citizens. Anytime you draw 3,000 people on a night, there may be an occasional problem. But my feeling is that if you want the serenity of Montana, move to Montana."

That attitude infuriates people like Susan Finley, a writer who lives near Limelight. She said Mr. Gatien has only responded to complaints since the Council considered the bill. "It's kind of ironic that he is now acting as the statesman of the discos," she said.

Lately, Mr. Gatien has ventured into movies. He was the executive producer for "A Bronx Tale," with Robert De Niro and Chazz Palminteri. He is also thinking of opening a restaurant with a dance area.

"I am sure that when I was 30, I said to myself, 'Jesus, I don't want to be a 40-year-old club owner someday,' " he said. "It's not like I can't wait to get out of the business. But if some megagiant came by and wanted to buy me out for $50 million, would I consider it? The answer is yes, and I'd get into something else."

Copyright 1994 The New York Times Company