Playboy Mansion Officially Sold: The House That Sex Built Is Now Under New Ownership

The Playboy Mansion officially has a new owner. Aaron Metropoulos shelled out $100 million for the historic property that now lies adjacent to another property that Metropoulos already owns.

The Playboy Mansion, the home of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, is located in California near the UCLA campus and the Bel-Air Country Club. The Playboy Mansion sits on 5.3 secluded acres and is a 21,987 square foot Gothic Tudor-style manse. The estate was originally designed by Arthur R. Kelly for Arthur Letts, Jr. in 1927. Letts was the son of the Broadway department store founder. The home was later owned by Louis D. Statham, an engineer and inventor. Hugh Hefner purchased the mansion in 1971 for $1.1 million, and it officially became the Playboy Mansion West. The original Playboy Mansion was located in Chicago.

As a condition of the $100 million sale (which was half of the initial $200 million asking price), Hefner will be allowed to stay on the property and live out the rest of his life there. As such, Hefner will pay Metropoulos $1 million per year for each year that Hefner lives at the Playboy Mansion. The Playboy Mansion was appraised at around $54 million in 2011, but that appraisal clearly didn’t factor in the “mystique” that the Playboy Mansion has acquired over the last 35+ years. Over the years the Playboy Mansion has become synonymous with Hefner’s bathrobe, extravagant parties for the rich and famous, the Grotto, and the bevies of gorgeous centerfolds wearing next to nothing lounging by the pool.

So, for the rest of his life, Playboy founder and publishing magnate Hugh Hefner will continue to enjoy all that the Playboy Mansion has to offer. The home has 22 rooms, a screening room with a built-in organ, three structures containing a private zoo, a wine cellar complete with a secret door, a tennis and basketball court, a koi pond and a man-made stream, and an orchard and its own forest. The Playboy Mansion’s swimming pool includes the Grotto, a patio and barbecue area, and a basement gym and sauna below the bathhouse. Four guest rooms adjoin one of the zoo structures. Hefner’s lair, the master suite, occupies much of the second and third floors. There is a game room — which is more of a house than a room — on the north side of the Playboy Mansion, that includes pinball machines, a pool table, both modern and classic video games, a player piano, a jukebox, and an extensive entertainment center. The terms of the deal with Metropoulos state that all the games are included with the sale of the Playboy Mansion.

There is another large home across the street from the Playboy Mansion that Hugh Hefner reportedly bought in 2002. This home is commonly referred to as the “Bunny House,” and is used to house guests and Playboy Playmates when there is a lot of activity in the mansion.

The new owner of the Playboy Mansion, Daren Metropoulos, is a principal at the Metropoulos & Co. investment firm. The price paid for the Playboy Mansion, $100 million, is the largest amount of money ever paid for a home in Los Angeles County, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The 90-year-old Hefner was originally born in Chicago and started out his career after college as a copywriter for Esquire. Hefner left that position in 1952. Once free, the longtime Playboy Mansion owner hocked all of his furniture and managed to scrape together $8,000 from “investors” (including his own mother) to start Playboy. The first issue of Playboy featuring a topless Marilyn Monroe was released in December of 1953 and sold over 50,000 copies… and an American institution was born.

Metropoulos purchased the adjacent land to the Playboy Mansion in 2009 and has released plans to connect the two properties once he moves in. However, it’s not yet known if Metropoulos intends to make any major redesigns to the legendary Playboy Mansion or will keep it largely as it is.

[Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Playboy]