Playboy Mansion sold for $95M less than its listing price

Hefner and the Playboy Mansion
Hefner and the Playboy Mansion

The Playboy Mansion, as it turns out, sold for significantly less than its $200 million asking price.

The buyer, Daren Metropoulos, paid $105 million for the five acre-estate, sources told the L.A. Times. The son of billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos, he already owns the property adjacent to Hugh Hefner’s palace. 

Although the yet-to-close sale didn’t come close to the original price tag, it is on track to set the record for the most expensive home ever sold in Los Angeles County. The sale price was also much higher than what some in the industry had anticipated.

Josh Flagg of Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Realty and Bravo TV’s “Million Dollar Listing” told The Real Deal in January that the the property was worth $90 million, tops, and that the asking price was way overblown.

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“I could see someone possibly paying [$90 million] because of the cache along with the value of the land,” he said. “A home is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay for it and for someone who wants to own the Graceland of the West, the home could achieve such a price.”

But Metropoulos had extra incentive to buy the mansion. He bought the property next door from Hefner for $18 million in 2009, and now plans to combine the two properties to create a gigantic compound. He has to wait, however, until Hefner dies, thanks to a morbid sales stipulation.

Metropoulous is a principal of his family’s private equity firm, Metropoulos & Company. In a partnership with financial planning company Apollo Global Management, Metropoulos & Company purchased Hostess Brands for $410 million in 2013. The firm has also invested in the likes of Perrier Jouët Champagne and Ghirardelli Chocolates.

When the sale closes, it will beat the record held by Holmby Hills’ Fleur de Lys estate, which sold for $88.3 million, as the pricest home sale in L.A. County history. [LAT]Cathaleen Chen