Playboy Mansion
Hefner established the original Playboy Mansion in 1959. It was a brick and limestone residence in Chicago's Gold Coast, which had been built in 1899. Hefner had founded Playboy in Chicago in 1953. After he permanently relocated to California in 1975, his company eventually let the mansion for a nominal rent to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then donated it to the school outright. The school later sold the mansion, which was then redeveloped for luxury condominiums. Following Hefner's death in 2017, allegations of drug and sexual abuse began to emerge at the Playboy Mansion during Hefner's lifetime.
History
The 21,987-square-foot (2,042.7 m) house is described as being in the "Gothic-Tudor" style of architecture by Forbes magazine, and sits on 5.3 acres (2.1 ha). It was designed by Arthur R. Kelly in 1927 as Holmby House for Arthur Letts Jr., son of The Broadway department store founder Arthur Letts.
It was acquired by Playboy Enterprises (as with the earlier Chicago Mansion, Hefner nominally rented his living accommodations from the company, which also designated the homes as promotional facilities) in 1971 for $1.05 million (equivalent to $8.2 million in 2024). Its previous owner was Louis D. Statham (1908–1983), an engineer, inventor and chess aficionado. In early 2011, it was valued at $54 million. It sits close to the northwestern corner of the Los Angeles Country Club, near the University of California, Los Angeles and the Bel-Air Country Club. Following the company's acquisition of the property, $15 million was invested in renovation and expansion.
The mansion has 29 rooms, including a wine cellar (with a Prohibition-era secret door), a screening room with a built-in pipe organ, a game room, three zoo/aviary buildings (and related pet cemetery), a tennis/basketball court, a waterfall and a swimming pool area (including a patio and barbecue area, a grotto, and a basement gym with sauna below the bathhouse). Landscaping includes a large koi pond with an artificial stream, a small citrus orchard and two well-established forests of tree ferns and redwoods. The west wing (originally a servant's wing) housed the editorial offices of Playboy. The main aviary building is the original greenhouse with four guest rooms adjoining. Hefner's personal suite occupies several rooms on the second and third floors, and is the most heavily renovated area of the building proper, with an extensive carved-oak decor dating to the 1970s. Otherwise, the mansion proper is maintained in its original Gothic-revival furnishings for the most part. The pipe organ was extensively restored in the last decade. There is also an outdoor kitchen to serve party events. These features and others have been shown on television.
The game room (game house) is a separate building on the north side. There are two sidewalks from the fountain in front of the main entrance, running past a wishing well. That on the right leads to the game house and runs past a duplicate Hollywood Star of Hefner. Its front entrance opens to a game room with a pool table in the center. This room has vintage and modern arcade games, pinball machines, player piano, jukebox, television, stereo, and couch. The game house has two wings. On the left is a room with a television and a soft-cushioned floor that is surrounded by wall-to-wall mirrors. There is a restroom with a shower. The right wing of the game house has a smaller restroom and entrance to a bedroom. This bedroom is connected to another, which has an exit that leads outdoors to the game house's rear yard. This backyard has lounge chairs and gates on either side.
In 2006, Hefner's former girlfriend, Izabella St. James, wrote in her memoir, Bunny Tales, that the house was in need of renovation: "Everything in the Mansion felt old and stale, and Archie the house dog would regularly relieve himself on the hallway curtains, adding a powerful whiff of urine to the general scent of decay." She also observed: "Each bedroom had mismatched, random pieces of furniture. It was as if someone had gone to a charity shop and bought the basics for each room", and that: "The mattresses on our beds were disgusting – old, worn and stained. The sheets were past their best, too."
During the time of Hefner's marriage to Kimberly Conrad, the Mansion was modeled as a more conservative household.
The mansion next door is a mirror image of the Playboy Mansion layout, only smaller, and was purchased by Hefner in 1996, which would eventually serve as the home for Conrad and their children, Marston and Cooper, when she and Hefner separated. Hefner and Conrad married in 1989 and separated in 1998. In March 2009, Hefner and Conrad put the property up for sale for the asking price of $28 million. In August 2009, the property was purchased by Daren Metropoulos for $18 million.
In 2002, Hefner purchased a house across and down the street from the mansion for use by Playmates and other guests who would prefer to stay further from the busy activity of the Mansion proper. That residence was commonly referred to as the Bunny House. In April 2013, the Bunny House was listed for sale for the asking price of $11 million. In September 2017, the property was sold to an unidentified buyer for $17.25 million.
Sale of Playboy Mansion
In January 2016, the Playboy Mansion was listed for sale by Playboy Enterprises, Inc. for the asking price of $200 million, subject to the condition Hefner be allowed to continue to rent the mansion for life. In August 2016, the Playboy Mansion was bought for $100 million by Daren Metropoulos, the co-owner of Hostess Brands and a principal in the investment firm C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. Metropoulos intends to renovate and restore the mansion to its original form.
In 2009, Metropoulos bought the mansion next door to the Playboy Mansion from Hefner and his ex-wife Kimberly Conrad, and ultimately now wants to join the two properties. The Playboy Mansion and the mansion next door owned by Metropoulos were both designed by American architect Arthur R. Kelly and each estate has a common boundary with the Los Angeles Country Club.
In May 2016, Eugena Washington was the last Playmate of the Year to be announced by Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.
Permanent protection covenant
In March 2018, Daren Metropoulos, the owner of the Playboy Mansion, entered into an agreement with the City of Los Angeles which permanently protects the mansion from demolition. The agreement between Metropoulos and the City of Los Angeles, referred to between the parties as a "permanent protection covenant," is binding on all future owners. The agreement protects the mansion from demolition, but still allows Metropoulos to make modernizations and substantial renovations and repairs to the property "following a long period of deferred maintenance while under Playboy ownership."
Under the permanent protection covenant, Metropoulos has further agreed to restore the house and facade to "its original grandeur." The compromise agreement reversed a move in November 2017 by Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz to seek landmark status for the mansion in the hope of protecting the architectural integrity of the estate for what he called "an excellent example of a Gothic-Tudor." If designated a historic landmark, Metropoulos would have faced a lengthy process for permitting and review for the rehabilitation of the property. The permanent protection covenant avoided a potentially drawn out and contentious legal action between the City of Los Angeles and Metropoulos for the City of Los Angeles seeking the formal designation of the mansion as a historic landmark.
Original Chicago mansion
The original Playboy Mansion was a 54-room 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m) classical brick and limestone residence in Chicago's Gold Coast district at 1340 North State Parkway which had been built in 1899 (or 1903) for $100,000 (equivalent to $3.07 million in 2024). Its original owner was Dr. George Swift Isham, a prominent surgeon whose social circle included Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Peary. The building was designed by architect James Gamble Rogers, best known for his work at Yale University and Columbia University.
In December 1959, the building was acquired by Playboy Enterprises in a $370,000 (equivalent to $3.9 million in 2024) cash transaction. The Chicago Mansion's basement, renovated upon occupancy as Hefner's original "grotto", had a swimming pool with a glass wall and attached bar. In addition to a six-car garage, exercise/game room, large ballroom and restaurant-type kitchen, the residence contained a top-floor dormitory for Bunnies employed at the Chicago Playboy Club and 13 discrete apartments and furnished rooms (most notably the luxurious Blue Room and Red Room guest suites, which shared a common bathroom) that were variously occupied by several employees and friends of Hefner; these ranged from Playmates completing protracted photo shoots to peripatetic cartoonist-songwriter Shel Silverstein (who lived in the Red Room during extended stays in his hometown) and longtime Hefner aide Bobbie Arnstein. Located on the second floor of the building, Hefner's personal suite (containing a three-room apartment and bathroom) was prominently connected to the Roman Bath, an "elaborate bathing/sleeping area" designed for marathon group sex sessions that almost always encompassed Hefner, longtime friend/roommate John Dante and their respective paramours; by the early 1970s, it contained "baroque gold spigots and faucets that sprayed and showered" alongside "a tub with chest-high water" and a mirrored alcove with a mink-covered waterbed. Hefner's suite also was connected to three additional rooms that were employed as the publisher's nominal office (notwithstanding his oft-publicized penchant for working in his bedroom's metonymous round rotating/vibrating bed).
The Chicago Mansion also boasted a brass plate on the door—gifted to Hefner by A. C. Spectorsky, the magazine's influential editorial director—with the Latin inscription Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare ("If you don't swing, don't ring").
An adjacent 20-room townhouse at 1336 North State Parkway (originally built with a connection to 1340 North State Parkway as a residence for Isham's daughter in 1914) was reincorporated into the complex in 1970; acquired in cash for $550,000 (equivalent to $4.3 million in 2024), it contained a board room, ancillary offices and bedrooms (including an addition to the Bunny dormitory, which could now accommodate up to 30 boarders); a single-lane bowling alley (possibly built for Christie Hefner and featuring a gold-plated ball for the elder Hefner, who largely eschewed the sport after proving to be a middling bowler) was constructed in the annex's basement during this period.
From 1971 to 1975, Hefner divided his time between the Chicago Mansion and the Playboy Mansion West. According to a 1979 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission decision, the publisher spent 71% of his time (8.5 months) at the Chicago Mansion in 1972, a metric that dwindled to 55% (6.6 months) in 1973 and 40% (4.8 months) in 1974.
Although Playboy Enterprises remained headquartered in Chicago until 2012, Hefner designated the Mansion West as his full-time residence in 1975 following the criminal conviction and ensuing apparent suicide of Bobbie Arnstein, the culmination of an "investigation of drug use in Hefner's mansion" by U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (and future Governor of Illinois) James R. Thompson that attracted significant publicity after Arnstein's March 21, 1974 indictment. Arnstein's apparent suicide (which occurred at the Maryland Hotel, situated in the immediate vicinity of the Chicago Mansion) followed the high-profile September 1973 death of Adrienne Pollack—a 23-year-old Bunny and former dormitory resident who may have been involved in drug trafficking at the Chicago Mansion—from a methaqualone overdose.
Hefner's use of the Chicago Mansion had already declined precipitously following his March 1974 breakup with Playmate Karen Christy, who had been domiciled there as his primary companion in the city (Barbi Benton seldom visited Chicago after the acquisition of the Mansion West) since 1971. Attorneys also had likely advised Hefner to keep a professional distance from Arnstein (who was in the early stages of preparing to move to Los Angeles—under the stipulation of not residing at the Playboy Mansion West as a condition of maintaining her role with the company—at the time of her death) for the duration of her legal proceedings, prompting him to spend even more of his time at the Mansion West after August 1974 (as inferred from the dates of newspapers that remained in Hefner's Chicago Mansion apartment for much of the next decade).
Additionally, the December 1974 resignation of Robert J. Adelman (then chairman of the Rubloff Company, an influential Chicago real estate conglomerate) from Playboy Enterprises's board in the aftermath of the Arnstein conviction appears to have further estranged Hefner from the local business community, which was long circumspect of his lifestyle. "Things were very different here [in Los Angeles] from Chicago," Hefner later recalled. "Tom Bradley, the mayor, attended the opening of the Playboy Club and was a frequent guest at the parties and so was Jerry Brown, the governor.” According to Hefner friend and fellow pornographer Suze Randall, the Chicago Mansion "had for some time been hired out for large business meetings" (such as a January 1975 Texas food convention that coincided with Arnstein's apparent suicide and a Randall business trip) "in an attempt to make it pay its way" as a profitable event facility. During a thwarted attempt to sell the property amid Playboy Enterprises' financial difficulties in July 1975, Senior Vice President Victor Lownes estimated that the publisher only spent three weeks at the Chicago Mansion (including several short business trips, a visit centered around Arnstein's funeral and a similar stay for a May 1975 backgammon tournament) during the previous year. “After [Arnstein] died, there really wasn’t a lot of reason for going back [to the Chicago Mansion]," Hefner recalled in 2009. “There really wasn’t anything left for me there.”
Unbeknownst to the public at the time, the decision to officially "mothball" the Chicago Mansion in September 1975 also coincided with a substantial increase (from $7,800 to $36,000 per year) in the fair rental value of the publisher's Chicago accommodations—likely in anticipation of 1978 disputes with the Internal Revenue Service and a shareholder group concerning Hefner's potential embezzlement of corporate assets through the Mansion lease agreements—prompting the publisher to only renew his Playboy Mansion West lease thereafter. The contemporaneous sale of the Big Bunny (the company's McDonnell Douglas DC-9 business jet, which was almost exclusively employed for commutation purposes by Hefner and his immediate entourage after 1970) also rendered his previous lifestyle untenable due to his disdain of commercial aviation.
Beginning in the summer of 1975, the Chicago Mansion was maintained with a "skeleton staff" of approximately 12 security and maintenance employees (having previously burgeoned to a height of 50 staff members during the facility's heyday) and primarily opened thereafter to the public for "occasional charity benefits and business functions" following the concomitant closure of the Bunny dormitory, which had only six remaining residents in the months following the Arnstein affair. During this period, Derick Daniels (who served as president and chief operating officer of Playboy Enterprises from 1976 to 1982) lived in a Chicago Mansion apartment throughout his first year with the company.
While Hefner vowed to "spend more time in Chicago" during meetings in the city following the controversial dismissal of Anthony Jackson (a recruiter then characterized as Playboy's highest-ranking Black executive) in August 1975, his few documented visits thereafter consisted of a November 1975 stay referenced in subsequent press reports, a July 1976 trip centered around an awards luncheon for Elton John and a December 1978 holiday jaunt coinciding with one of the magazine's 25th anniversary parties. Although the complex had been put on sale for $2.3 million (equivalent to $12.3 million in 2024) by late 1976 (increased to $2.5 million [equivalent to $12.5 million in 2024] a year later), Hefner's apartment and office (including many of his remaining personal effects) remained virtually untouched during the ensuing interregnum. When no buyers manifested, the main building was leased for $10 per year as a dormitory (under the imprimatur of Hefner Hall) for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in August 1984; as part of the agreement, the School purchased 1336 North State Parkway outright for $500,000 (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2024), while Playboy Enterprises formally deeded 1340 North State Parkway to the Art Institute when the agreement lapsed in 1989. In 1993, the Chicago Mansion was sold to developer Bruce Abrams and converted into seven high-price luxury condos. In 2011, one 7,874 sq ft (731.5 m) condominium was placed for sale at an asking price of $6.7 million.
Events and appearances
- The house can be seen in the 1966 film Madame X (before it was purchased by Playboy in the next decade).
- The Playboy Mansion was used as a film location in Beverly Hills Cop II, with Hefner as himself in a cameo role.
- The mansion hosted the Starting Line of the 12th season of CBS' long-running reality competition series The Amazing Race.
- The mansion was a main setting in the 2008 film The House Bunny, and Hugh Hefner again portrayed himself.
- The mansion's front gate appeared in the 2011 film Hop in which EB tries to request lodging in the mansion only for Hefner (in a voice-only appearance as himself, heard over the entry phone) to turn him away. Later, when the Pink Berets are searching for EB outside of the mansion, Hefner comes on the entry phone again and threatens to put a stop to what ever is going on outside. One of the Pink Berets responds by smashing the camera.
- The mansion is briefly mentioned in the last panel of the Big Nate comic strip October 10, 2016 edition, which depicts Mr. Galvin denying Nate permission to interview him for the school newspaper, as the last time Nate wrote about him he included a photoshopped image of Mr. Galvin's head on Leonardo DiCaprio's body at the Playboy Mansion, leading readers to begin to view Mr. Galvin as a "philandering party animal."
- The mansion can be seen in Grand Theft Auto V. It has a small cave, back patio and a small bar. Topless women and older men can be found there at night.
- It is featured in a scene of the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- The Mansion was the setting for the band Weezer's music video for their song "Beverly Hills".
Financial
According to Playboy Enterprises' SEC filings, Hefner paid Playboy rent for "that portion of the Playboy Mansion used exclusively for him and his personal guests' residence as well as the per-unit value of non-business meals, beverages and other benefits received by him and his personal guests". This amount was $1.3 million in 2002, $1.4 million in 2003, and $1.3 million in 2004.
Playboy paid for the Mansion's operating expenses (including depreciation and taxes), which were $3.6 million in 2002, $2.3 million in 2003, and $3.0 million in 2004, net of rent received from Hefner.
Charity events
The Playboy Mansion has hosted charity events, including Karma Foundation, the Celebrity Poker Tournament, a fundraising party for the Marijuana Policy Project, and an event to benefit research into autism.
2011 bacterial outbreak
In February 2011, 123 people complained of fever and respiratory illness after attending a DomainFest Global conference event held at the Playboy Mansion. After an investigation in response to the reported illnesses of the DomainFest attendees, epidemiologists from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health disclosed their findings at a Centers for Disease Control conference. The disease outbreak was traced to a hot tub in the mansion's famed grotto, where they found Legionella pneumophila, which causes Legionnaires' disease.
Abuse allegations
The 2022 A&E documentary series Secrets of Playboy featured interviews with former Playboy employees who alleged numerous acts of sexual and drug abuse took place at the mansion during Hefner's lifetime. Before the first episode of the documentary series aired on January 24, 2022, Playboy released a statement which dissociated itself from Hefner. On June 21, 2022, a California civil trial jury found that comedian Bill Cosby sexually assaulted 16-year-old Judith Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975.
In response to Sondra Theodore's later claim that Hefner manipulated her into an orgy and hosted prostitution sex parties known as "Pig Nights" during the time she lived at the Playboy Mansion, a spokesperson for Playboy issued a statement to Fox News Digital in August 2022 saying that "Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy," and that "We trust and validate these women and their stories, and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences. As a brand with sex positivity at its core, we believe safety, security and accountability are paramount." Soon afterwards, renowned Playmate Jenny McCarthy, who was affiliated with Playboy in later time in 1993 and 1994, claimed to Fox News that she did not experience the claims described in Secrets of Playboy and that the mansion had become "almost like Catholic school" by the time she was living there, but also did not speak out against the claims made by the Secrets Of Playboy accusers, stating "I think I went in there in a window of time that was kind of safe, but hearing some of these girls' stories was really rough."
In 2024, Hefner's widow Crystal would publish a memoir backing allegations that the Mansion was an environment of sexual abuse, and also describing it as a place where she felt "imprisoned." Crystal also told The Guardian that "Hef was on the extreme side of narcissism" and "I had to play mind games to survive."
In popular culture
A house inspired by the Playboy Mansion makes an appearance in the 2013 videogame Grand Theft Auto V.