For sale: Well-lived-in mansion in the Holmby Hills. 29 rooms, nearly 22,000 sq. ft. Built in 1927. Gothic-Tudor style. Comes complete with permanent resident until death do him part. Asking price $200 million.
Sold.
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Tonight’s feature presentation: Playboy Mansion
They didn’t get the $200 million asking price; they settled for half that amount. Still a lot of money for a house that the previous resident vows to remain living in until the day he dies.
That’s the (in)famous Playboy Mansion West, or just Playboy Mansion. It’s actually the second home to carry that name, as we will see.
The original
Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine in 1953, with less than $10,000 in various loans to get things started. By 1959, the magazine’s fortunes had grown so quickly that it was able to buy what became the original Playboy Mansion, in Chicago. The 1899 mansion epitomized what Hef called the Playboy lifestyle. With 70 rooms, a swimming pool/grotto in the basement, bunnies everywhere, and seemingly endless parties, it was the place to see and be seen back in those days.
In 1971, Hef headed west, and paid $1.1 million for the house in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. For a while, he divided his time between the original Playboy Mansion, and the Playboy Mansion West. Hef moved west full-time in 1974, but corporate headquarters remained in Chicago until 2012.
Meanwhile, after a couple of changes of hands, the original mansion was gutted in 1993 and divided into four (some articles say seven) luxury condos; each unit is now worth several million dollars, if you can convince one of the owners to sell.
West Coast Ups and Downs
The western mansion became an instant hit with the Hollywood crowd, and the parties became the stuff of legend. Not to mention the goings-on in the famous grotto; not in the basement like at the old mansion, but part of the pool area on the grounds.
Architectural Digest says about the mansion and grounds (with several beautiful photos):
… the main house has six bedrooms, six baths, and two powder rooms. The estate also includes a four-bedroom guesthouse and a two-bedroom games house.
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The grotto might be the most talked-about feature of the grounds, but other highlights include the zoo (the home is one of the few private residences in L.A. with such a license), the lagoon-style pool, the tennis court, and the rolling lawns.
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There’s also a koi pond, a small citrus orchard, and two well-established forests of tree ferns and redwoods.
CBS News also took a glowing look at the property when it went up for sale earlier this year.
Vice News (yeah, I know), on the other hand, had a personal look inside, and gave a not-so-glowing report:
The first thing I did was go find a bathroom to poop in. I didn't even need to, really. But how often do you get a chance to poop in the Playboy mansion?
...
After pooping, I started to notice how crappy everything was. Am I an idiot for thinking the mansion would be nice? I figured it would at least be a little bit fancy. That was the main reason I'd wanted to visit—I'm gay, btw.
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When I found out I was going to the Playboy mansion, "steal a towel" went straight to the top of my mental to-do list. But look at these fucking things. I was expecting plush egyptian cotton thingies with the Playboy logo embroidered on them. My towels are nicer than this, and I found one of mine on a train.
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This is when I started to get really bummed out. Nothing upsets me more than seeing something that was once glorious fall into decay. I nearly cried once while looking at one of those Us Weekly "worst celebrity plastic surgery" lists.
So, maybe a little run down and tattered around the edges. The grotto was linked to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in 2011. No doubt it costs a lot of money to keep a place like this going, and would certainly cost a fortune to update and upgrade things like bathrooms, appliances, carpets, drapes, furniture, and so on. Maybe that’s why it was sold.
From the NYT article by Brooks Barnes about the new owner:
Don’t get me started on the bathroom off the mansion’s main hall. There is a separate house that contains arcade games and has bedrooms with carpeting I could only describe as crispy.
To be clear, Hef didn’t personally own the mansion. It was owned by the company he started, Playboy Enterprises, and he reportedly paid the company rent to live there. I’m guessing a lot of the expenses for parties and keeping the Playboy lifestyle going were corporate write-offs though.
The estate was valued in 2011 at $54 million. When put on this market this year, the asking price was $200 million. Perhaps Playboy was trying to maximize whatever value it could, before Hef passes on.
Last month, the mansion was sold to Daren Metropoulos, a billionaire’s son and current co-owner of Hostess Brands, for “only” $100 million. The family money comes from such brands as Chef Boyardee and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Metropoulos already owned the estate next door, and plans to combine the two properties back together. The original 1927 estate actually had both properties as one, and Hef sub-divided them for the benefit of one of his ex-wives.
$100 million for a fixer-upper. That’s a lot of Twinkies and HoHos.
According to Variety, Hef will continue to live in the house until his death (not to be morbid, but he is now 90 years old, so do the math), and pay Metropoulos $1 million in annual rent. Hef was, and is, a tenant in the house forever linked to his name.
Top comments for sunday September 18, 2016
From HedwigKos:
twistenmymellon adds to Back of Bourke's comment with a really clear insight into an important aspect of Trump's campaign in his comment here, in Crashing Vor’s diary “Fuck It. Let Hitler Win.”. I love the phrase "revolt of the C students."
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