Where playboys feel at home
It’s not the Playboy mansion, but it is the playboy’s mansion. Hugh and Kimberley Hefner’s personal residence is an English Manor-style home that sits on 2.3 flat acres in affluent Holmby Hills.
The area was originally envisioned by Broadway department store founder Arthur Letts as a neighborhood of grandiose estates.
Since its development in the 1920s, residents have included Hollywood icons Walt Disney, Bing Crosby and Aaron and Candy Spelling, whose home is also now on the market.
Letts’ son, Arthur Jr., was the original owner of the Playboy mansion, and the Hefner home next door was built for the younger Letts’ sister in 1929.
The English Manor-style house was later bought by philanthropist Lita Annenberg Hazen (sister of Walter Annenberg) and her husband, Joe Hazen, the former vice president and director of Warner Bros. The Hefners bought it in 1996.
The house features a formal living room, dining room, library, his-and-her powder rooms, and a two-story entrance hallway. Maple paneling lines the family/media room, which has a film projector and built-in screen that drops down from the ceiling.
The oversized kitchen features an open layout with a morning room and butler’s pantry, opening to an outdoor terrace. A maid’s room in the rear of the house has a separate entrance.
Upstairs are three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. The master suite, which includes a fireplace and walk-in dressing room with mirrored doors, overlooks the backyard garden. The master bathroom has rose marble walls, counters and floors.
Throughout the house are leaded-glass windows and hand-painted walls.
The walled estate, with grounds that back to the Los Angeles Country Club, includes a large motor court with three-car garage, rolling lawns and views of the golf course.
There’s even a door in the wall between the estate and the Playboy mansion, but you’ll have to get your own invitation to the party next door.
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To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, send high-resolution color photos with caption and credit information on a CD and a detailed description of the house to Lauren Beale, Business, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., CA 90012. Questions may be sent to homeoftheweek@latimes.com.
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BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX
What do you get for $27.9 million?
Location: Mapleton Drive, Holmby Hills, 90024
Asking price: $27,995,000
Previously listed for: $17.25 million in 1996
Size: Five bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 7,300 square feet
Additional features: Viking and Sub-Zero appliances in kitchen, swimming pool, three fireplaces
Around the neighborhood: Other properties for sale on Mapleton include an 11,000-square-foot home for $16.9 million and the 56,500-square-foot Spelling estate, priced at $150 million. In 2008, 55 single-family homes sold in the 90024 ZIP Code at a median price of $1.69 million, according to MDA DataQuick, a price increase of 0.6% from 2007.
Listing agents: Joyce Rey, Coldwell Banker Previews International, Beverly Hills, (310) 285-7529; Stacy Gottula, Coldwell Banker Previews International, Beverly Hills, (323) 610-7191.