Hugh Hefner

As part of the 125th anniversary celebrations for Mercedes-Benz, a 1965 Mercedes 600 Pullman landaulet (above) custom built for Pope Paul VI will be on display at the 16th Annual Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in Florida on March 11–13. The historic vehicle is making its first appearance on U.S. soil as part of a featured Class of Mercedes-Benz 600s at the prestigious event. The 600 Pullman was originally presented in September 1963 at the Frankfurt International Motor Show and quickly became the vehicle of choice among the world's wealthy elite; in addition to the Pope, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Hugh Hefner and Coco Chanel owned one. The luxe limousine was equipped with Mercedes' first ever V-8 able to reach 0-62 mph in 10 seconds.

This vehicle built for the Pope was specially constructed with an individual seat for the pontiff that could be raised and lowered during the car's procession through crowded streets. An elevated roof, extended rear doors, and raised floor were also fitted along with other special equipment such as bulletproof glass. Over two decades, the car was used by three popes including John Paul I and John Paul II and was returned to Mercedes-Benz's Stuttgart, Germany headquarters in 1985. It comes to Amelia courtesy of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart where it is one of many famous and priceless cars in its collection.

Playboy is selling off part of its art collection in an auction through Christie's New York on December 8 in an auction titled "The Year of the Rabbit." The 125-piece offering will include a Dali watercolor of a reclining nude that hung in Hugh Hefner's bedroom. The sale features 80 photographs, many of which appeared in the magazine and more than a dozen contemporary works and 24 cartoons.

Among the offerings (shown in the gallery below) are a photograph of comedian Dan Aykroyd in a conehead costume with Pamela Anderson, an early Brigitte Bardot photo, an oil painting of of a scarlet-lipstick mouth by pop artist Tom Wesselmann and a 1970 portrait of Hefner in his signature smoking jacket and pipe. Wesselmann's "Mouth No. 8" is estimated at $2 million to $3 million.

The art represents just a small amount of the Playboy Art Collection which has an archive of 5,000 contemporary artworks and more than 20 million photographs. The auction also features centerfolds of women whose careers were made by Playboy including Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson.

Fun-loving octagenarian and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is the latest vodka spokesperson. Stolichnaya Vodka has unveiled a new commercial featuring Hef for Stoli's 'Would You Have a Drink With You?' campaign. Part of Stoli's Original theme showcasing distinctive personalities, 'Would You Have A Drink With You?' will feature Hefner in commercials on TV and in print. Stoli is launching its newest original flavor White Pomegranik, the first white pomegranate flavored vodka. A new limited edition bottle of Stoli Ohranj with the Playboy bunny logo will be available for the holiday season.

Her'es where it all began, the first Playboy mansion on Chicago's Gold Coast, where you can now buy a condo that is up for sale. The Victorian-style mansion was built back in 1903 and designed by James Gamble Rogers for surgeon George Snow Isham. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner turned the home into the first Playboy mansion and used it for parties and events from 1959 until the mid-1970s when he decamped for Los Angeles. The company later leased the mansion to the Art Institute for student housing and in 1989 it was donated to the museum. But as Hef has found with his Holmby Hills mansion, upkeep is expensive. Struggling under the burden, the Art Institute sold it to developer Bruce Abrams in 1993. Abrams gutted the home and renovated it into seven separate units. Today's home is the only unit in the building that leads out to the property's garden and it has a private patio. The three-bedroom 3,900-square-foot unit has beautiful architectural details like ornate moldings, built-in shelving and curved archways. This slice of Playboy history is listed at $2.9 million.

[via Chicago Tribune]

There's joy in Hollywood tonight, the 138 acres behind the Hollywood sign will go into a public land trust. The hotly contested land on Cahuenga Peak is zoned for luxury homes and there was fear that it would be sold to developers if $12.5 million wasn't raised to buy and protect the land. And here's where good old Hugh steps in. Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner made a $900,000 donation at the last minute so that the conservation group "Trust for Public Land" could buy the land. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said that Hefner was the final donor. Schwarzenegger was quoted in the LA Times praising the donation and result as "the Hollywood ending we hoped for."

Hefner released a statement calling the Hollywood sign Hollywood's Eiffel Tower and "an important cultural landmark." Other donations came from Arianne Getty, Tiffany & Co. jewelers, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The sign itself is owned by Los Angeles but the land behind it belonged to investors who could have sold the rights to build four luxury mansions along the ridgeline for a tidy fortune (they were hoping for $22 million). The land will now be become part of the 4,200-acre Griffith Park sprawl. Recently the conservation group covered the Hollywood sign so that it instead read "Save the Peak."

Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant created classically inspired suits for Brooks Brothers. Now Mad Men star and interior designer Bryan Batt has teamed up with Playboy Enterprises to create a loveseat that pays homage to early 1960s style. "The Hef" is a limited-edition loveseat designed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Playboy Clubs. The loveseat is hand signed by Playboy Founder, Editor-in-Chief and Chief Creative Officer Hugh M. Hefner and was designed by Batt and manufactured by Brownstone furniture.

It was unveiled at the Las Vegas Market trade show at World Market Center by Batt and several Playboy Club Bunnies. "The Hef" will remain on display for the duration of the show until Friday. The loveseat has gray mohair upholstery, nail head detailing and rosewood side panels and will be in limited production, with only 50 pieces available for sale. It will retail through Batt's New Orleans store Hazelnut New Orleans for $15,000.

Luxist readers last heard of famed Scottish photographer Rankin when his bespoke bottle for The Macallan single malt Scotch debuted. Now the shutterbug has released a new volume of edgy erotica appropriately titled Rankin's Cheeky.

The book features a foreword by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and an introduction by Heidi Klum, who has shed her clothes for the photographer's skillful erotic studies on a number of occasions. "I'm never shy with Rankin," Klum says.

Kate Moss has also been snapped by the master in her birthday suit many times; some of the images are featured in the book. "Any time Rankin takes a picture he knows what he wants, and there is really no chance of being anyone but who you are, even if you try," she notes. "You can trust him. I trust him."

I mentioned briefly before that Hugh Hefner and his wife Kimberley sold her house next to the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills, California but I neglected to mention the fact that is sold for $10 million below the list price of $27.995 million. The LA Times Hot Property column reported that the home, which hit the market in March, sold for $18 million. The 7,300-square-foot English Manor-style house was built in 1929 and has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The home is behind private gates on 2.3 flat acres that back up to the Los Angeles Country Club and the grounds include a swimming pool.

The Hefners bought the home in 1996 for Kimberley Hefner to live in with their two sons. It was then listed then at $17.25 million so if Hefner bought anywhere close to list price back then he isn't making too much on this deal. But the aging magazine tycoon's lavish lifestyle has been straining the budget of the Playboy empire and so the sale might have been a matter of some urgency.

[Thanks, Charles! via Listed]

From the Real Estalker:
--Brian Austin Green has listed his four-bedroom Tudor style home in Los Angeles, shown above, for $2.395 million. The listing is here.
--The estate of Jimmy Durante has put his three-bedroom home in Beverly Hills on the market for $3.395 million. The listing is here.
--Hard Rock Cafe heir Harry Morton has listed his two-bedroom unit in West Hollywood's Sierra Towers for $2.895 million. He paid $3.5 million back in 2007. The listing is here.
--LeVar Burton has listed his home in Sherman Oaks, California for $1.85 million.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--The Gosselins have dropped the price of their former home in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania from $325.000 to $315,000. You can check out pictures here.
--A two-bedroom house in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills area that Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses once owned has been listed for $1.25 million. The listing is here.
--"Weeds" creator Jenji Kohan has placed her three-bedroom home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles on the market for $1.597 million. The listing is here.
--Actress Parminder Nagra has put her four-bedroom home in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area back on the market for $1.375 million. The listing is here.
--Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg has sold his home in the Hollywood Hills for $3.575 million.
Justin Long has re-listed his two-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills for $1.245 million. The listing is here.
--Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's Holmby Hills mansion next to the Playboy mansion which was listed at $27.995 million is now listed as "looking for backup."


From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Michael Lemos, the son of a Greek shipping tycoon, is raising the price of his apartment at 2 East 67th Street again. It went on the market for $34.9 million in May 2008, was increased to $39.5 million last July, is now listed for $45 million.
--via Curbed, Och-Ziff chief financial officer Joel Frank and his wife Lynn paid $9.4 million for a third-floor condo at 15 Central Park West last October. But now they're buying an apartment downtown, too, a 1,200-square-foot pad at 99 Jane Street for $1.5 million.
--David Schrader, a former senior managing director at Bear Stearns, has sold his 12th-floor apartment at 30 Fifth Avenue for $1.95 million.
--via New York Daily News, disgraced lawyer Marc Dreier's condo at One Beacon Court sold at auction for $8.2 million after 45 people placed bids on the 3,000-square-foot pad. The buyer is Ajit Jain, a protégé of Warren Buffet and the head of Berkshire Hathaway's reinsurance group.
--David Salomon, co-founder of California-based Financial Asset Trading & Technology, and his wife Joanne, have picked up a condo at 530 West End Avenue for $3 million.
via the Real Deal, the Broome Street building where Heath Ledger died in 2008 has changed hands. The property's lender, Donald Burns of Palm Beach Mortgage Management, paid $15 million for the building.
--Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman has paid $2.65 million for an apartment on the second floor of 79 East 2nd Street.


From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Art dealer W. Graham Arader III has taken his mansion at 1016 Madison Avenue off the market. We checked it out in 2007 when it was listed at $75 million.
--Attorney James Triedman paid $3.65 million for a three-bedroom co-op at 14 East 90th Street which was listed at $4.25 million.
--Investment strategist Jason Trennert paid $3.25 million for nine-room co-op at 22 East 88th Street which was listed at $4.695 million.
Artist Richard Prince has paid $11.5 million for a townhouse located at 57 East 78th Street.
--Mediabistro founder Laurel Touby has paid $3.905 million for a penthouse at 43 East 19th Street.
--Former Bear Stearns executive Alex Reyfman has sold his co-op at 245 West 107th Street for $1.555 million to William Ulfelder, director of the Nature Conservancy of New York.


From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--The Jonas Brothers may be close to buying a mansion in Alpine, New Jersey. The approximately 8,000-square-foot home is a five-bedroom Colonial is in the $10 million price range.
--Lorraine Bracco has found a buyer for her Hudson River hideaway in Trey Anastasio, the lead singer/guitarist of Phish. He is in contract to buy her cottage for around $2 million. We checked out this home in 2007 when it was listed at $3.2 million.
--Real estate investor Gerhard Andlinger is in contract to buy a 1920s home on Sherwood Avenue in Greenwich, Connecticut. It has been quietly been on the market since April at around $19.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--A Los Feliz home owned by singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder has sold for $2.407 million.
--Singer and actor Frankie Avalon has sold his golf course retreat in La Quinta for $955,000.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Mickey Rourke has rented a loft in Manhattan's meatpacking district for $19,800 per month which is less than half what the apartment rented for just four months ago.

From Newsday's Real LI:
--Attorney Bruce A. Blakeman whose ex-wife Nancy Shevell, is currently dating Paul McCartney has purchased a six-bedroom, four-bath home in Water Mill, New York for $2 million.

In September, Taschen will publish Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's illustrated biography in six volumes, combined with a chronological selection of highlights from the seminal men's magazine's first 25 years (1953 to 1979). Limited to 1,500 numbered and signed copies, the six-volume set comes packaged in a luxurious plexiglass box and costs $1,300. Beginning with Hef's youth and his boyhood comic collection and ending with the height of Playboy's success, the anthology is billed as "the most probing and intimate portrait of Hefner ever made."

Hefner's extensive participation and the inclusion of a wealth of memorabilia from his personal scrapbooks set this anthology apart from other Playboy books. The six volumes contain over 700 pages of autobiographical text about Hef's youth, army days, first attempts as a cartoonist, early career, girlfriends, and Playboy's launch, illustrated by original Hefner artwork and cartoons, correspondence, and a huge selection of archival photos, many previously unpublished.

A pair of ultra-luxurious Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman limousines from 1969 and 1971 that belonged to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner are being offered for sale by a collector in New Zealand. Hef ordered the 21-ft. long limos with the rare 6-door configuration, of which only 140 were built, new from the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart. The 600 Pullman, last of the hand-built Mercedes models, was the transport of choice for VIPs including the Pope, Coco Chanel, John Lennon, Jack Nicholson, Aristotle Onassis, and Elvis Presley, among others.

Both cars are painted black and feature forward facing seats at the center doors, a hydraulically operated reclining seat at the rear, curtains in the rear compartment, tinted glass, a soundproof glass center division with an intercom system for communicating with the chauffeur, and tons of chrome and wood paneling. The 1969 model is finished in black leather and features a refrigerated bar cabinet, while the 1971 has red leather and a built-in television. Both mint condition cars are priced at about $165,000.

[via JamesList]

Can Richard Branson be the new Hugh Hefner? Rumors are flying that the VIrgin Media tycoon is interested in the Playboy empire. The company has been allegedly shopped around for $300 million even though the market value is perceived to less than $100 million. Part of the reason for wide difference in figures is because the company wants to make sure that any deal will help Playboy's 83-year-old founder maintain his lavish lifestyle. Although one of Hugh Hefner's homes is on the market for nearly $28 million there is still main Playboy mansion and its tremendous upkeep to consider. He remains the editor of Playboy magazine and has said he wants to pass down his interest in the company to his teenage sons Marston and Cooper.

While Hefner's lifestyle has burdened the company his public recognition has also been a major part of keeping interest in Playboy Enterprises. The good thing about Branson in charge versus some faceless equity company is that you would have another charismatic man at the helm. Branson also excels at using his lifestyle and his appearances to further his businesses and he also has a wide variety of businesses which could partner with Playboy.

UPDATE: Looks like the Playboy/Virgin empire will forever exist only in our minds.

It's not the Playboy mansion but if you've ever wanted to live next door to the girls next door this is your chance. Hugh Hefner and wife Kimberley (yep, he's still technically married but they have been separated for ten years) have listed the home next door to the mansion. This is where Kimberley has raised their two children who are now in their late teens.

The seven-bedroom home is on a two-acre walled property that is also adjacent to the Los Angeles Country Club. The estate was built in 1929 and has expansive lawns and a pool. The listing doesn't offer a single interior picture (it's rather a stalker's view of the home) but the listing says there is a two-story entry, paneled study, family room and a master bedroom suite with a marble bath and a separate dressing room.

The Real Estalker reports that the Hefners bought the home in 1996 for around $6.7 million from the estate of TV Guide heiress turned philanthropist Lita Annenberg. The question of why the Hefners are selling is up for debate. The party line per the LA Times Hot Property column is that the young Hefner boys are going off to college and the house is too big. But with all the stories of trouble in the Playboy empire and rumors of a potential sale it's likely Hefner has been told to lighten his financial load. The question is whether or not at $27.995 million there is anyone willing to snap up the ivy-covered mansion.

Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

Right on time for holiday giving, Playboy has come out with a line of wines. The wines are available by bottle or by a yearly subscription for $1,567 and include a limited run of up to 550 bottles per series; vineyards include Gargiulo Money Road Cabernet Sauvignon, St. Supery's famed Dollarhide Cabernet Sauvignon, Schug Estate Heritage Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, RODA Cirsiron and Tenuta Sette Ponti Oreno. And of course, since it's Playboy, each wine is labeled with a vintage Playboy cover which represents the flavor and taste profile of each wine.

The wines are available online but will also be sold at wine retailers in the United States. The wines will retail individually at $90 to $380 a bottle. Check out the first offerings in the gallery below.

[via Avenue Vine]

Not many coffee table books come with their own briefcase but this one is no ordinary book. It is 720 pages that includes every centerfold from every issue of Playboy. The book includes over 600 Playmates offering a unique look at how standards of female attractiveness have varied over the decades. The black leather briefcase is lined in red velvet and has combination locks. It sells for $315.

[via Acquire]