Mythic Playboy Mansion Is Hefner's No More

Sale of the ultimate man cave has closed for $100M
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 17, 2016 6:03 AM CDT
Mythic Playboy Mansion Is Hefner's No More
Hugh Hefner wears his famous silk pajamas at the Playboy Mansion in this file photo. The magnate, now 90, can live in the recently sold mansion for the rest of his life.    (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)

The party’s over: The sale of one of the most famous mansions in America—the five-acre Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills—has closed for a not-insubstantial $100 million, Reuters reports, though it's worth noting that the sale price is half of the original asking price. The mansion also comes with a pajama-clad built-in resident, 90-year-old Hugh Hefner, who will live out the rest of his days in the estate where he spent his glory days. It was the largest residential sale in LA history, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The buyer was next-door neighbor financier Daren Metropoulos, 33, who said, “I feel fortunate and privileged to now own a one-of-a-kind piece of history and art.” Playboy Enterprises will pay Metropoulos $1 million a year in upkeep for the remainder of Hef's life; as part of the deal, Metropoulos agreed to give Hef plenty of notice when he wants to visit.

Playboy Enterprises paid $1.1 million for the Gothic Tudor-style mansion in 1971. With 20,000 square feet, 29 rooms, a tennis court, and a swimming pool, there was plenty of space for Hefner to throw some of LA’s most hedonistic parties, which he stocked with Playboy bunnies and bawdy entertainment for A-list guests like, er, Bill Cosby. In recent years, though, as the aging magnate’s health declined, life at the mansion seemed decidedly less fun, less-than-thrilled guests told the Mirror. (A recent visitor panned it as “kinda depressing,” Vice reports.) After Hef’s tenancy, er, ends, Metropoulos, plans to combine the property with a 2.3-acre property next-door he bought in 2009 and use it as his own personal residence. ("Pontiac fever" once crashed a Playboy Mansion party.)

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