The Playboy Mansion, the legendary party house where Hollywood’s elite cavorted with scantily-clad “bunnies,” is being sold to the billionaire Twinkies owner who lives next door, a spokesman said Monday.
Hugh Hefner, the 90-year-old owner of the Holmby Hills estate in southern California and founder of Playboy Magazine, will be permitted to continue living there for the rest of his life. The buyer is Daren Metropoulos, a 32-year-old business tycoon who lives on the property next door to the mansion, which he bought from Hefner in 2009 for $18 million.
Metropoulos is a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos and Co., which co-owns Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, an iconic American snack. He intends to connect the two estates into a combined 7.3-acre compound once Hefner dies, according to the Wall Street Journal. He declined to disclose the purchase price, although the estate was valued at $200 million when Playboy Enterprises put it up for sale earlier this year. (AFP)