You buy the mansion, we'll throw in a roommate!

January 12, 2016 12:00 PM

You won the big Powerball, you're going to want a new house. There's no investment like real estate. How about the Playboy® Mansion?

Home of a million adolescent and man-child fantasies, it's for sale for a mere $200 million (although Zilliow says it's only worth $34 million.)

The 21,987-square-foot mansion is described as "Gothic-Tudor," and comes with a bonus no other house in the world offers: roommate Hugh Hefner!

Part of the sales contract includes lifetime tenancy for the 89 year old publisher.

posted by Marky (86 comments total)

One of the best comments on this that I've read is that the difference between the asking price and estimated value is due to the cost of bleach and disinfectant.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:02 PM on January 12, 2016 [25 favorites]

Because having to keep around a pervy old grandpa isn't weird or anything.
posted by Kitteh at 12:03 PM on January 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

I think it's funny when I read articles that say things like, "It's probably worth closer to 90 million." My Iowan sensibilities kick in and I think, "No house is worth that." Seriously, if you can't be happy in a million dollar home then you just plain old greedy and I ain't got time for you.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:03 PM on January 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

So, that roommate; are there stipulations where he has to sleep? I mean, no way I'm giving up the master bedroom for 200$million. Can I just put him in the basement somewhere? Can I give him his own entrance so he won't bother my friends? Do I have to let his friends visit?
posted by el io at 12:03 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sorry, Hef, but my mom needs that suite of rooms. You'll like your new digs though; you'll be living in the pool shed!
posted by Existential Dread at 12:04 PM on January 12, 2016

I skimmed the Holly Madison biography at a friend's house awhile back and the main thing I remember from it is that the mansion is soaked through to the floorboards with dog pee
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:08 PM on January 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

You'll like your new digs though; you'll be living in the pool shed!

What, you're just gonna kick Pauly Shore out on the street?
posted by Etrigan at 12:10 PM on January 12, 2016 [18 favorites]

A lot of people are saying that the mansion is a teardown because the land is worth about $90M all by itself.
posted by Etrigan at 12:13 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bleah.

For a lot less than $34M I could buy a no-shit five hundred year old castle in the Scottish borders, and a helipad and a chopper plus pilot to get me to and from the pub.

Castle running costs are steep (new roofing tiles? That'll be a cool half-million, sir) but if I just trousered $800M I'm pretty sure I could afford a heated outdoor pool and some tacky topiary as well.
posted by cstross at 12:14 PM on January 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

The Brody House literally right next door sold for $55mil. $200mil is wildly overinflated
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:19 PM on January 12, 2016

What To Do When YOU — yes, YOU — Win The Lottery
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:22 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'd probably just set up some The Others-style gaslighting. "And this is the room in which Hugh Hefner died!" "I'm right here." "You can almost hear his damned soul call from beyond the grave!"
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:24 PM on January 12, 2016 [68 favorites]

What, you're just gonna kick Pauly Shore out on the street?

Just spitballing here, but I think we've got the start of a good odd couple reality show. "Hefner Shore." We can get the Situation to cameo, I hear he works cheap these days.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:25 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd be afraid of him becoming the next Jeanne Calment.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:26 PM on January 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Just tear down the entire place except the bare minimum of structure to support his room and see how long he stays.
posted by cmfletcher at 12:27 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

It doesn't say: does that $200 mil include a full-service disinfecting, steam-cleaning and bleaching of every exposed surface?

This would be one house inspection I'd insist on a UV light sweep for.
posted by bonehead at 12:28 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd buy the place just for the articles.
posted by srboisvert at 12:29 PM on January 12, 2016 [46 favorites]

I would totally buy the Playboy® Mansion. Especially if it came with it's own Hefner. I'd turn it into a herpetology rescue sanctuary. Cage free.
posted by This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things at 12:31 PM on January 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

So on the one hand I'm reading these comments and thinking they're really slut-shamey and sad, and on the other hand I'm like "Yeah, but even if you cut that out the dude's still massively problematic and he'd be living in the other room." But then octorock pointed out the thing about dog piss in the floorboards and that's a deal-breaker regardless.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:31 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

A real estate guy involved said on TV the other day that the place needs some 2030 millions dollars worth of renovation but that years from now it might well be worth money as some sort of museum, relic of the past. Suggested that some rich Middle Eastern sheik or a Russian zilliionaire might buy it.
posted by Postroad at 12:37 PM on January 12, 2016

Okay, Metafilter...you've talked me out of it. *puts away chequebook*
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:44 PM on January 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Shit, for $200m, Hef should be your employee. You can rent him out for events to earn back some of the ridiculous up-charge.

This got me to browsing ridiculous local real estate. I think I'll buy this one when I win. Although I'm not sure 19 bedrooms and a separate ballroom wing will be enough.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:45 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

So we're not interested in all chipping in and having a cool new club house?
posted by Keith Talent at 12:47 PM on January 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Once I was representing a woman who was being evicted on grounds of her dog being a nuisance. I went to talk to the downstairs neighbor who pointed to a stain on the ceiling that she claimed was urine from my client's dog. I was all /zing how you know that's dog urine /zing. The neighbor said, "I'm a vet" and that wiped the smile off of my face
posted by angrycat at 12:53 PM on January 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

Sure Hef, you can have that creepy sex dungeon. I'll try my best not to lose the key.
posted by adept256 at 12:56 PM on January 12, 2016

So we're not interested in all chipping in and having a cool new club house?

According to some lottery math I saw on FB recently, it's an outrage that this isn't covered by the $5 we've already paid.
posted by The Tensor at 12:57 PM on January 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

This would be one house inspection I'd insist on a UV light sweep for.

One of the stipulations of buying it is agreeing not to do a UV sweep.
posted by drezdn at 12:59 PM on January 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Eh, if I win I will totally buy it as the Mefi Clubhouse. And I will have gilded thrones built for the mods.
posted by Justinian at 1:00 PM on January 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Wow, I thought the "roommate" thing was going to be a lot more offensive.
posted by ODiV at 1:02 PM on January 12, 2016

jesssamyn gets this. or maybe this.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:04 PM on January 12, 2016

The Pope should buy it and turn it into a monastery.
posted by mazola at 1:05 PM on January 12, 2016

The Brody House literally right next door sold for $55mil. $200mil is wildly overinflated


Or maybe that house was just "undervalued" because the neighbors are so awful.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:05 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

jesssamyn gets this

Splinter is coming.
posted by adept256 at 1:06 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wonder if the neighbours just hate the place.
posted by GuyZero at 1:07 PM on January 12, 2016

the main thing I remember from it is that the mansion is soaked through to the floorboards with dog pee

I see. It's one of those Howard Hughfner situations.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:08 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Isn't the Playboy Mansion more of an event center at this point? It seems to me it's often rented for events and parties, aside from official Playboy business. I'd say that puts it more in the investment-property realm, given you're likely to make a bunch of rental profit, versus a "I'm rich and need a huge-ass home" mansion purchase.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:09 PM on January 12, 2016

See, if you let Hef stay, soon enough you'll have Bill Cosby ringing your doorbell asking if he can come out and play.
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:10 PM on January 12, 2016

the main thing I remember from it is that the mansion is soaked through to the floorboards with dog pee

I see. It's one of those Howard Hughfner situations.

Or maybe just one rather large Howard Huge-fner situation.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:16 PM on January 12, 2016

First order of business: changing the name to the more-inclusive "Person of Play Mansion".
posted by dr_dank at 1:19 PM on January 12, 2016 [8 favorites]

Does the Playboy Mansion come with a Penthouse Suite?
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:20 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

But it comes with a zoo licence! Just make Hefner the star attraction and wait for the dollars to start pouring in. Call it the heavy petting zoo or something.
posted by Ned G at 1:25 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's a long story but essentially I was the chaperone of a Texas winner of the Playboy Pajama Party. She was being scoped as a potential Playmate and a tour of the mansion was part of the package. We were there the morning after a Playboy After Dark taping so everyone was still asleep. The entrance was innocuous with a big boulder with a speaker and camera embedded. We toured the grounds and saw the roaming peacocks, the two story monkey cage, Barbie's cottage and what, at the time, was the largest indoor aviary in North America. We also toured the infamous grotto and bounced around in the playroom where the floor was a trampoline. But for me the most impressive feature was the landscaping. The mansion is in Beverly Hills right in the middle of LA. But from no perspective can you see a wire, a pole or a rooftop in any direction. You might as well be on Fantasy Island...
posted by jim in austin at 1:27 PM on January 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

"Do you come with the mansion?"

"Tee hee! Oh you!"
posted by bondcliff at 1:28 PM on January 12, 2016 [16 favorites]

Well Mom, remember my dream of owning a big house near Beverly Hills and how I used to wish for a screening room with a pipe organ and a room entirely covered with mirrors, and how I always wanted a large koi pond and wishing well and a gym in the basement with a sauna, and remember how I used to chit-chat with Dad about always wanting a wine cellar with a secret door and a zoo and an aviary, and remember how much I wanted a grotto under the swimming pool and how I wanted floorboards soaked with dog pee? Well, I got that too.
posted by Spatch at 1:28 PM on January 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

It's tempting. Though, on the other hand, 40 million sockpuppet accounts...
posted by ckape at 1:28 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

By contrast, Neverland Ranch is up for sale for $100 million.
posted by adept256 at 1:28 PM on January 12, 2016

For a lot less than $34M I could buy a no-shit five hundred year old castle in the Scottish borders

Yeah, but what are the heating costs like? Easily another 34m per year presumably. i guess you could just get a dozen shaggy deerhounds to snuggle up with though.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:37 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Get a black light in there and the price should drop. Didn't people get sick with Legionnaires in the grotto and the house?

It probably smells like the Disinfectant hospitals use and the hospital lunch cart. And Vicks Vaporub.

I'm going to be sick. I hate it when I think of gross things and get nauseated from the idea.
posted by discopolo at 1:39 PM on January 12, 2016

Blacklights are the least of the issues. I suspect the house has hardly been upgraded in decades and that the kitchen and bathrooms in terrible shape. And "largest indoor aviary in North America" says just one things to me: largest indoor guano pile in North America.
posted by GuyZero at 1:47 PM on January 12, 2016 [10 favorites]

The Brody House literally right next door sold for $55mil.

That house is on two acres, the Playboy Mansion is on 4. The primary value of either could be the land, so that's roughly $100m in land value.

Add $50m for it being such a famous and legendary property, and $50m to make the price sound super high so when it is sold, the person who pays $125m for it still gets remembered as the oil baron or whatever who paid $200m for the Playboy Mansion. In other words, the price is part of the marketing.
posted by cell divide at 1:49 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pervy grandpa Hefner is merely following in the footsteps of my Irish great-granddad who had drawn up a contract for his daughter Brigid's marriage, that in order to inherit the farm, she was to come back to Ireland from America, marry the neighbor he specified, and that he was to live with them on the farm until he died, kept in the manner to which he was accustomed with the clothes he choose, and fed the same food as the rest of the family. Brigid complied, and the hand-written contract drawn up by a lawyer and signed with an X and sealed, is still in the possession of my second cousin, her descendant, who lives on the family farm to this day.

I do hope Heff did not forget to put in the stipulation about being fed the same food, and of course keeping his smoking jackets.
posted by mermayd at 1:51 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

So we're not interested in all chipping in and having a cool new club house?

This question came up around here a while back when some cool Evil-Lair-lookin' place out in the desert came up for sale, but apparently we didn't manage to get it together for that one either.

At this point I'm beginning to think you guys weren't serious in the first place, and now a Metafilter clubhouse will never happen...
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:56 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Im routinely sensitive to smells and that place could smell like peonies and be completely clean and I'd still smell the Vaporub and Kleenex and Vaseline and be grossed out. I've read multiple accounts of what happens when the playmates have to have sex with Hefner (after the Viagra gets him ready), how weird and unsatisfying and un-sexy sex with him is. I feel bad for the playmates (who aren't openly allowed to have outside boyfriends or lovers who could actually satisfy them.)
posted by discopolo at 1:57 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Back in the day (the Day being perhaps 1780) it was a Thing in some circles to have a hermit on one's property. Or so I have a memory of reading somewhere. Possibly my copy of Petronella Wyatt's memoir of her father, now missing, but in which I'm pretty sure she recounts his trying to hire someone to fill that role in more recent time. No luck, of course, but the attempt was valiant.

You can see where I'm going with this....
posted by BWA at 2:01 PM on January 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it's for sure getting torn down. Gutted, at the very least.
posted by billyfleetwood at 2:16 PM on January 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Dracula's castle is going for only $80M. I'm not sure about life-time (or undead-time) tenancy clauses.
posted by rtimmel at 3:01 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gotta say, though, looking at all these comments about disinfectants and black lights and such...you guys have actually stayed in hotels, right?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:05 PM on January 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Look, I know you think that what you need to buy is a whole lot of bleach and disinfectant, but the real solution is just to go out to the pool, turn on the water, and enjoy the transformation of the house with a little Shmitt's Gay.

The house has been a symbol of hetero male-fantasy for long enough, c'mon changing it over definitely is worth a trip to Disney.

Otherwise, nuke it from space...
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:32 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

rtimmel: "Dracula's castle is going for only $80M. I'm not sure about life-time (or undead-time) tenancy clauses."

It's architecturally interesting enough that I'd hope that someone would want to preserve the building itself but even at that it's going to need to be gutted with a total infrastructure revamp. I've certainly seen houses of similar grandeur and in much worse condition brought back to life but given that California is California, I'm guessing that they'd bulldoze it and put up some horrible thing that will looked dated in ten years.
posted by octothorpe at 3:40 PM on January 12, 2016

Buy it and rebuild a few thousand condos on the 5 acres.
posted by humanfont at 3:52 PM on January 12, 2016

largest indoor guano pile in North America.

*ssssh* Don't let big fertiliser know!
That'll inflate the price even more.
posted by Mezentian at 3:55 PM on January 12, 2016

Bran castle did not belong to Tepes.

Though I hear Larry Flynt is putting in an option.
posted by clavdivs at 4:34 PM on January 12, 2016

largest indoor guano pile in North America.

*ssssh* Don't let big fertiliser know!
That'll inflate the price even more.

LMAO, reminds me of that scene in A Scanner Darkly where the characters go from paranoid the Feds have broken in and planted drugs in the walls to wondering how much more they can sell the house for with drugs in the walls...
posted by subdee at 5:41 PM on January 12, 2016

One of the best comments on this that I've read is that the difference between the asking price and estimated value is due to the cost of bleach and disinfectant.


Bleach and disinfectant? But all that celebrity genetic material is where the real value is once we perfect cloning.
posted by juv3nal at 5:59 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

jesssamyn gets this. or maybe this.

She can have whatever. she. wants.
posted by datawrangler at 6:28 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

yabbut that would be a throne made out of English muffins
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:34 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mass produced or artisan?
Buttered or unbuttered?
Because I can see one problem with that.
posted by Mezentian at 6:36 PM on January 12, 2016

When I win the Powerball, I buy this property and we build the best Mefi clubhouse ever.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:11 PM on January 12, 2016

I actually visited the Playboy Mansion once as part of a tour with my zookeeping class-- we were there to see the aviary but got to look at a couple of rooms, like the pool grotto and the game room. It looks VERY 70's-- rooms are much smaller than the modern equivalents would be, and the ceilings lower, and everything just.... dingy. And that was .. 20 years ago.
posted by The otter lady at 7:32 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

O fuck yes I'd like to buy your smelly, dilapidated jizz house for 200 million. Wait, creepy grandpa Hefner gets to stay and wander around freely in his open bathrobe ... can I please give you 300 million?
posted by dgaicun at 8:18 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

So much Hefner hate in here. I gotta respect the guy for living his dream and using his magazine to push many progressive issues over the years. One of which is that sex is not a dirty thing. Guess that one fell on deaf ears around here.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 9:14 PM on January 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

His dream of literally treating women as playthings? Or his dream of marrying a 26 year old in his 80s? Or perhaps you're referring to his dream of requiring Playmates to have sex with him?

MeFi is pretty sex-positive. What MeFi is trying not to be is misogyny-positive.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:36 PM on January 12, 2016 [11 favorites]

Yeah, I think there's also a serious difference between believing that consensual sex is somehow morally unclean, and feeling like a structure, known for its depressingly 70's-esque interior, liberally squirted dog urine, and decades of celebrity swing parties, might be a touch in the crusty side.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 9:53 PM on January 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

But all that celebrity genetic material is where the real value is once we perfect cloning.

Can you imagine all that goop mixing together? The product would be the Übermensch of reality show contestants or 1990s MTV hosts.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:51 PM on January 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not when it's their employer doing it, no.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:14 PM on January 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Is this ALL not consensual?

I'd be willing to guess that the caretakers of the household weren't exactly "consenting" to allow dogs to piss all over everything.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:01 AM on January 13, 2016

Kendra Wilkinson, who moved into Hefner's foetid pissoir des chiens mansion at age 18, says she didn't know sex was required.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:20 AM on January 13, 2016

I don't understand if you are judging her for her sexual history

For the record: I would never. Ever. EVER.

or if you think she was coerced into everything...including making the old dude her kid's godfather.

Allowing an eighteen-year-old to give up their housing, move into your place, and live then there for weeks before informing them that, oh, by the way, there's someone you have to bone if you want to keep staying here, is inherently coercive and, to my mind, revolting creepy, no matter what happened afterward.

How she ended up dealing with that, and what she truly thinks of Hefner, is hers to know, not mine. I don't presume to know her mind. All I know is what she said about the beginning of her time with Hefner&Co, and for me, that's more than enough to justify being thoroughly horrified and grossed out.

And with that, I'm going to bed.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:53 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

So why is metafilter all slutshaming ...

Well, if I was "shaming" anything, it was soaked-in-pee-shaming. But Rule 34 and all that. Everyone's into something. Pardon if I offended.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:16 AM on January 13, 2016

Well, if I was "shaming" anything, it was soaked-in-pee-shaming.

Why must you shame watersports enthusiasts?
posted by Mezentian at 7:24 AM on January 13, 2016

But I'm not going to judge anyone for having consensual sex.

Nor am I. When there is a power differential of that sort, there is a serious question as to whether it's consensual or not. Oh and ps "she stayed for five years" is victim-blaming.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:27 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dude, you are missing every single point.

But like, if your sad little gotchas make you feel better, fine. I'd point you at the women who have said the same thing I have.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:42 PM on January 13, 2016 [4 favorites]

The most important point being: your EMPLOYER demanding sex is inherently and unambiguously coercive. Period.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:19 PM on January 13, 2016

Because the agreement to take nude photos is not the same as agreeing to fuck your septuagenarian employer and I am utterly baffled that you don't see the difference.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:02 AM on January 14, 2016 [6 favorites]

There's no rule that says a consensual sex relationship can't be found gross and risible by reasonable people without it being slut shaming. There is 100% nothing wrong with finding Hefner yucky. There is no requirement to celebrate everybody's fucking lifestyle choices.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:05 AM on January 14, 2016

Because he is the embodiment of Playboy.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:32 PM on January 14, 2016