Playboy Mansion Sells for $100 Million to Next Door Neighbor Daren Metropoulos

SELLER: Playboy Enterprises
BUYER: Daren Metropoulos
PRICE: $100,000,000
SIZE: (approx.) 20,000 square feet plus numerous outbuildings

YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: After erroneous rumors ran rampant last week that the deal had been called off, 33-year old businessman and investor Daren Metropoulos has officially closed on the purchase of the iconic Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles at a sale price of $100 million. While the pleasantly round, nine-figure sale price is certainly high enough to make an average centimillionaire gasp with pecuniary envy it is none-the-less exactly half of the elephantine $200,000,000 asking price. Mister Hefner will continue to occupy the mansion for the remainder of his life but, according to an unimpeachably well-connected informant — let’s call him Adam Apple — the 90-year-old soft-core porn pioneer will pay Mister Metropoulos $1 million in annual rent. Mister Apple also told us the sale price included all arcade games and statues on the property.

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The five-ish acre estate, long owned by Playboy Enterprises and not directly by Mister Hefner, is anchored by an impressively lavish if by most first hand accounts somewhat run-down 29-room Gothic Tudor mansion that spans about 20,000-square-feet. The compound-like estate’s numerous outbuildings include a four-bedroom guesthouse, commercial catering kitchen, and a separate games house. A gated driveway passes through a small Redwood grove as it makes its way to the circular drive at the front of the intricately embellished mansion and the estate’s fully landscaped grounds encompass vast lawns and extensive gardens, a tennis court, and, of course, the internationally renown lagoon-style swimming pool and grotto. There are several aviaries and exotic animal pens — the estate is one of only a handful of private homes in Los Angeles to have a zoo license — and the property transfers with a permanent, year-round pyrotechnics permit.

Mister Metropoulos, the financially fortunate son of billionaire businessman C. Dean Metropoulos and currently the co-owner of snack food juggernaut Hostess Brands, already owns the estate next door, which he picked up in 2009 for $18,000,000 from Mister Hefner. According to a press release issued by a representative of the businessman, Mister Metropoulos, “embarked on a significant restoration” of the smaller estate that included “substantial improvements to the property’s formal gardens and expansive grounds” that border the verdant fairways of the ritzy Los Angeles Country Club. Once Mister Hefner’s tenancy comes to an end Mister Metropoulos plans to connect the neighboring estates, per the press release, to create a 7.3-acre compound to use as his private residence.

Playboy Enterprises was represented in the sale by Gary Gold and Drew Fenton of Hilton & Hyland and Mister Metropoulos by Coldwell Banker’s Jade Mills.

Listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

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