Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion may have served as the backdrop to reality show Girls Next Door and hosted infamous star-studded parties, but beneath its surface laid a deadly secret.
On what would have been the Playboy founder’s 99th birthday, RadarOnline.com can reveal his home was infested with mold, as his third wife Crystal Hefner blamed the “rundown” mansion on her health issues.
Hefner, who died aged 91 in September 2017 from sepsis brought on by E. coli infection, purchased the sprawling Los Angeles estate in 1971 for $1.1million.
Although the publisher sold the mansion to his neighbor, Daren Metropoulos, for $100million in 2016, he was allowed to live in the house until his death the following year.
His widow recalled initially being fascinated by the culturally historic home before realizing how “gross” and dirty it really was.
In her memoir, Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself, Crystal described the home as a “a time capsule from the ’70s.”
She noted the velvet furniture and wood-paneled walls looked as if “Hef had pushed pause at the height of his heyday and never unfrozen it.”
At first, Crystal didn’t mind living in the mansion so many other Playmates called home before her.
She wrote: “This was a beautiful English Tudor home – and my family is from England – on five acres in the middle of LA. But over time, I saw that this place doesn’t really get cleaned that well and there’s mold. It just felt rundown and gross after a while.”
While living in the mansion, the 38-year-old began to experience unusual health problems, including brain fog and anxiety, among other issues.
Crystal said: “The whole time the mansion was breaking me down, one way or another. Now it was breaking down my health. The house was literally making me sick.”
Eventually, Crystal took matters into her own hands and Hefner agreed to let her organize the home.
She wrote: “Everything was moldy and dusty and it was just hoarder central in the mansion.”
During an appearance on Dr. Daniel Amen’s Scan My Brain show, Crystal revealed she also brought in an inspector who informed her there was “mold everywhere. There’s fungus in these vents right above where you’ve been sitting for the last eight years.”
The revelation prompted a much-needed $2.5million mold remediation.
Following Hefner’s death, the home underwent a $10million renovation.
Building permits revealed additional major issues that needed to be addressed before cosmetic updates could be completed, including water damage, termite damage and dry rot.
Metropoulos’ renovations included building a luxury jacuzzi spa and one-story solarium, adding on a whopping 4,000 square-feet to the underground space, enlarging the screening room and adding a golf simulator.
He additionally planned to combine the estate with the property he purchased next door in 2009. His expansive renovation is still currently ongoing.
