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  There is also a basement area used for the laundry, and storage, with a creepy underground walkthrough to the gym, which itself is located underground. Besides the main house, the property also has a guesthouse, a four-bedroom cottage with shabby décor that houses Playmate hopefuls and Playmates who visit. The guesthouse is really outdated and needs a makeover; I heard that Holly was undertaking a remodel, and I certainly hope she was successful. Located beside the guesthouse is an aviary, which is home to many exotic birds—as well as fish—which I am sure served to wake the guests bright and early. On the other side of the guesthouse is the beautifully maintained tennis court, with benches and a bar area and tables. That is were the haunted house is built for the annual Halloween party. I used to take my pugs to the court every day and play soccer with them using one of the tennis balls.

  If you follow the path running through the front yard from the guesthouse, you will find the game house, with the infamous padded-floor room (the carpeted floor has a very thick pad underneath to make it bed-like), which is surrounded by mirrors and TVs. The floor in that room is soft, but it is by no means a mattress. Maybe it was at one time, back in the swinging ‘70s, but it has been worn in and worn out long ago. Besides pinball machines, a pool table, and several video games, the game room also has two other connected bedrooms; the red room and blue room—named after the color of the sheets and accessories. All you will find in these rooms are a bed, a ceiling mirror, and a phone. These rooms are very popular during parties, when they provide mischievous guests privacy for sexual liaisons or other interesting activities. Beside the game house, among the trees and shrubs, is the pet cemetery, where metal plaques commemorate the lives of beloved pets such as Mama Dog and Dior, Kimberly Hefner’s beloved Doberman.

  On the other side of the main house is the backyard. The grounds of the Mansion are definitely the most beautiful things about the entire property. When you walk out of the great hall into the backyard, you find yourself in paradise. Hef always told us that this is not what the grounds looked like when he bought the house, and it took a while for him to transform it into his own Shangri-la. First there is a large green lawn where the exotic birds roam. In the summer, a volleyball net is set up in the middle of the lawn, and there is also a large trampoline out there all year round. To the right is a tropical lagoon pool with a waterfall. Hef said he chose a naturalistic pool with rocks to blend in with the beautiful property because he just could not imagine putting a square cement pool back there. The pool is a variation of a kidney shape, and it wraps itself around a small hill; if you go all the way back around the pool you will find a path that leads to the top of the hill from where waterfalls plunge into the pool. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, girls used to suntan there naked and couples snuck out there to make love in the sun or under the stars. Maybe that is why helicopters still fly over the Mansion grounds almost every day, often circling repeatedly over the pool area. Also, on the top of this hideaway, embedded into the ground, is a large piece of stained glass, which, if you peek through, shows you the grotto underneath.

  The pool is connected to the infamous Grotto by two passages: one is a few feet under the water through a rock—I never swam through it because it gave me a claustrophobic feeling. And the other entrance is under a waterfall. The grotto is amazing. It feels like a romantic cave. It is warm, cozy, quiet, and seductive. The grotto is a combination of the pool with its cold waters and five hot-water whirlpools—you can walk right from the cold water into the hot water of the whirlpools. The whirlpools are all different; there is one that is like a bed—the water is only a foot or so deep so that people can lay in it. Another is very small but deep, a full body space—you just stand in it, and the pressure massages your entire body. Yet another is a cozy little sit-down, and the main, largest whirlpool is about waist-deep with the sitting area all along the side of it. Big white candles are scattered around the grotto. There are also green mattress pads (like you would find on a futon) conveniently placed in the remote dark nooks of the grotto.

  The pool and grotto are connected to a series of bathrooms, changing rooms, and showers that feel like they are outdoors—one wall of the shower is glass that faces the outside but is blocked from public view by luscious tropical plants. This area leads to a narrow winding staircase, down into the basement area connected to the house, where you find a well-equipped gym, as well as a steam room and a room with two professional tanning beds. On the other side of the pool is a Koi pond, also the favorite hangout of many ducks. One of my favorites was Zeus the goose (he was a Canadian goose, so I felt a particular bond with him), who passed away when I lived at the Mansion. We all loved him; he used to cruise around when the girls were tanning and hang out with them. I think he had a thing for Bunnies. He kept quacking at you as if he was telling you something. Hef wanted to get another goose, but we were afraid we could not find another like Zeus. There were several other birds that became favorites such as the trumpeter who loved being around people; the trumpeters are a small family of birds restricted to the forests of the Amazon basin in South America. They are named for the trumpeting call of the males. They are dumpy birds with long necks and legs and chicken-like bills. There was also the nutty African crane that would stalk us. I was always afraid he was going to nip at me. There are also pink flamingos and beautiful peacocks walking the grounds, as well as many other rare and exotic birds in the aviary. My favorite was Corolla, a Moluccan cockatoo usually found in the Philippines and the Moluccan and Indonesian islands. Moluccans are light pink to salmon colored with a beautiful large orange crest. Corolla is darling; she would say hello and always put on a show, which consisted of wing flapping and exaggerated head movements, when you came to visit her. She stuck out her foot to indicate that she wanted you to take her with you, but once you did she refused to go back to the other birds; she was happy to stay with you. I always told Hef that I would steal her some day.

  Next to Corolla’s day hangout (the birds spent the night in the aviary but were brought out during the day into the backyard, where they had tree posts with umbrellas to hang out on) was the zoo. Hef is one of the very few individuals in the country who is lucky enough to have a private zoo license. Most of the occupants are monkeys, such as the squirrel monkeys that you can hand feed. Grapes and bananas are placed in a little container by the cages, and you can walk in and they will gently take the grape out of your hand with their tiny little hands, peel off the skin, and eat the juicy inside. There were also two bigger monkeys, Coco and Pepe, who tried to scare you off when you walked by, hurling themselves at the bars of the cage. We also had bunnies and an owl that had been injured and was living out her last days in the safety of the Mansion grounds. We had a kinkajou—a nocturnal animal which lives in trees and looks like a cross between a monkey and a raccoon—which we used to sneak down and take a peek at nightly. (Though they are usually found in rainforests, a kinkajou named Baby Luv has recently been spotted on the red carpet with Paris Hilton!) Whenever things got stressful and chaotic in the main house, it was so relaxing and wonderful to walk around the grounds and spend time with the animals.

  Last but not least, on the roof of the house are two huge gargoyles. I think they are awesome, but they stay covered the entire year; they only get uncovered for Halloween. At the Halloween party, they flap their wings and breathe smoke. I asked why they stay covered most of the time, and I was told that they are unsightly and would scare people. More unsightly than two blobs on the roof covered and wrapped in cloth? Yeah, that doesn’t look ugly. I know they look ferocious, but they are there to ward off evil spirits and are nothing to be afraid of. Plus, with all the characters always coming to the house, Hef needs all the help he can get keeping the bad ones out.

  As for the furniture in the house, it is an eclectic collection. There are some nice pieces such as the desk in the great hall and the hand-carved throne chairs, and the furniture in Hef’s formal office is quite nice; however, the rest of it is just worn out a
nd shabby looking. It has been around since the ‘70s and maybe even longer. I imagine some pieces came with the house. Certain things have been replaced as need arose, and so the house is furnished with a random collection of things that do not necessarily belong together. It is not what I imagined it would be like. If they ever liquidate the estate and auction off the furnishings, I would advise the Smithsonian to put a bid in early on some of these ancient treasures. I have been to houses of celebrities and wealthy businessmen, houses that are beautiful and spectacular as expected. The Playboy Mansion, however, is just shabby inside, much to my surprise. The most beautiful parts of the Mansion are the architectural built-ins, such as the wood carvings in Hef’s room or the staircase. In my opinion, the greatest accessory of the house is a small Salvador Dalí painting hanging in the alcove between the dining room and the great hall. I am a big Dalí fan, and I was fortunate enough to see his works, my favorite piece among them, when I studied in Spain. I always thought if the Mansion was on fire, I would grab my two pugs and the Dalí. I just could not understand why Hef did not care as much about the general appearance of the interior of the Mansion as he did about the outside. I suppose he was more focused on the beautiful women surrounding him than he was on his actual surroundings. Maybe it’s because the Playboy Corporation wants to maintain it in its “original” décor, to keep it the way it was during Playboy’s heyday so that after Hef passes, it can become a museum. Hef has said repeatedly in interviews that he would like the Mansion to be purchased by the Playboy Foundation and used as a Graceland-type attraction. He wants to perpetuate the legend and mythology related to Playboy.

  Or maybe it’s because Hef does not own the house and the company keeps a tight budget on furnishings? Many people do not realize that Hef does not own the house; Playboy Enterprises and its shareholders own the house. I was shocked to learn that. Before we moved in, the other girls and I learned that the reason Hef was so particular about who moved into the Mansion was that he had to pay rent on each of the rooms. And the rent is ridiculously high: at one time he mentioned he had to pay something like $8,000 to $10,000 a month for my tiny room, and even more for the two bigger ones! If I remember correctly, he pays $25,000 a month for his own bedroom. You could rent a gorgeous beach house with that amount of money, even here in the over-the-top housing market of L.A.

  The bedrooms were in an even more inferior state than the common areas downstairs. Each bedroom had unmatched pieces of furniture; the bed frame, dresser, table, and desk were all different colors, types of wood, and even period styles. It was like someone went to the Goodwill and bought what she could in order to provide the basics for each room. I give credit to each Girlfriend for her decorating skills and being able to give each room some personality. Besides our mismatched furniture, our bed mattresses were old. I don’t know how old they were, but they were worn out and stained; it was disgusting. You would think Hef could buy new ones so that we did not have to sleep on soiled mattresses. It simply wasn’t in the budget, I guess. The sheets were also used. When Emma and I moved in, we asked Hef if we could have some money to furnish our rooms, to get mattress pads and new bed sheets that would be used only by us, and get a few things to decorate the rooms. Thankfully he agreed to give us a few hundred dollars; we had to turn in all of the receipts for things we bought and were reimbursed. Because I had to give up my own apartment when I moved into the Mansion, even though I was still paying rent on it, I brought over some of my personal belongings to fill the room. In the end we managed to turn our Mansion rooms into livable and cozy spaces.

  Hef also permitted us to have the rooms painted and recarpeted. For some reason he strongly preferred creamy white-colored carpet for the Girlfriends. We asked for darker carpets, but we were refused. He liked our rooms to look like little girl rooms, white carpet and pink walls. The white carpet looked great at first, but with two dogs and butlers delivering food in dirty shoes and occasionally spilling things, the carpet was gray and stained in a matter of three months. And even though we lived there for more than two years, we were not allowed to replace the carpet again. We had to live with that dirty stained carpet until we left. But I am not surprised Hef did not care about our carpets: the one in his bedroom had not been changed for years. It was literally the color of diarrhea. It became significantly worse when Holly moved in with her first dog and then got another. The dogs were not housebroken and relieved themselves on the carpet. Many a late night or early morning we stepped in her dog’s pee, or worse, poop. When we used to go to see Hef on Friday morning to get our allowances, we always had to wait a few minutes as he walked around to pick up the poops. Holly finally talked him into having the carpet replaced when we went away on a trip. Unfortunately, the carpet chosen for him by the staff was dark blue with different colored patterns, which made poop-spotting much more difficult. Poor Hef used to strain his eyes looking around in the mornings, and our accidental step-ins increased. I saw on their reality show that she got two more dogs—that’s four dogs! I imagine it’s just one poop landmine after another in Hef’s room.

  The carpet in the upstairs hallway also had not been changed in who knows how long. Everything was just old and stale. Archie the house dog would regularly relieve himself on the hallway curtains, adding the scent of urine to the general scent of decay. At the beginning, I ignored all of these things because I was having too much fun to notice. But as time went on, the glamour and excitement of living at this famous address was replaced with disdain for all of the dirty, smelly things. I am glad to see that having a television show has encouraged Hef to replace the hallway carpets and update some things in the house; it is looking much better than it used to. Nevertheless, the Mansion is still not the highly glamorous place many people imagine it to be. In a sense, I wish Hef had kept the cameras out of the Mansion, and maintained that aura of mystique and fantasy that the Mansion had before.

  6: The Blonde Boob Brigade .

  “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb... and I also know that I’m not blonde.”

  —Dolly Parton

  In 1998, after ten years of marriage, Hef and “Playmate for a Lifetime” Kimberly Conrad separated, but Mr. Playboy was not lonely for long. With the help of his friends, Hef re-entered the L.A. nightclub scene. Like Austin Powers, Hef was hermetically unsealed and came out ready to swing once again. As he repeatedly mentions in interviews, “I discovered a whole new generation that was waiting for me to come out and play!” It certainly helped that he had his own troupe of Playmates to take out, and a magazine that many young women longed to pose for. Hef has learned that going out with beautiful women attracts even more beautiful women. It is not a coincidence that Hef always goes out with large groups of blondes and at one time had seven Girlfriends; the publicity is priceless.

  The original party posse was composed of the “Foursome”: Brande, Sandy, Mandy, and Jessica. Hef met Brande Roderick at a nightclub in 1998, and then met Sandy and Mandy Bentley, the twins, a couple of months later at Garden of Eden, another Hollywood nightclub. The twins wanted their friend Jessica to move into the Mansion with them. Although not attracted to Jessica specifically, Hef agreed because she was part of the package. Hef and the girls were seen out on town, and Hef was getting back in the limelight. He realized that four Girlfriends were better than one and that all of this attention was good for business. Things changed in the middle of 2000, when his beloved Brande, after becoming a Playmate and Playmate of the Year, moved to Hawaii to join the cast of Baywatch Hawaii. Her departure changed the group dynamic. I’d heard that by August, the twins and Jessica were asked to leave the Mansion. The Mansion regulars cite many outrageous reasons for why the twins were finally ousted. Whatever the cause, Hef had enough, and it did not end pretty. Although I have been around them many times, I do not know them personally. All I know is what I have heard from the butlers when I lived there, that they were high maintenance, that they used to sleep with some of the staff
, and that they had many other things going on outside of the Mansion. They knew how to play Hef, and it worked for a long time. I believe it was these girls that ruined it for the rest of us; Hef spoiled them and then ended up being disappointed and hurt. He would never be that generous and trusting later on.

  After the “Foursome” fell apart, Hef needed new girls. Enter Tina Jordan. He also met her at a nightclub, and Tina became his main Girlfriend and helped him recruit a new group of girls. This is when the concept of the party posse was born. The original seven Girlfriends were seen on the videotaped Playboy special Inside the Playboy Mansion and composed of Tina Jordan, Regina Lauren, Cathi O’Malley, Buffy Tyler, Katie Lohman, Stephanie Heinrich, and Tammy. This was the era of Girlfriends becoming Playmates. One after another almost identical blonde appeared in the pages of Playboy. Becoming Hef’s Girlfriend was synonymous with becoming a Playmate. Hef must have been happy to realize that the monthly need for new centerfolds also meant that he would have a steady supply of Girlfriends. But the scheme fell apart on both the personal and business levels. First, the readers supposedly became tired of seeing Hef’s Girlfriends in the magazine, not necessarily because they were Girlfriends, but because they all looked the same: platinum blondes with fake-looking breasts. Secondly, making the Girlfriends Playmates seemed to backfire because as soon as they got their title and a new car, they left. Some of them wanted a quick fix: they got the $25,000 that the Playmate title paid directly, and the upper tier of modeling or acting jobs it could lead to, or the prestige one could trade on. For Hef, it was another tough lesson learned, one that again affected our lives when we moved into the Mansion. The ghosts of ex-Girlfriends came back to haunt us.