Playboy's Penthouse Apartment

A Man's Home is not only his castle, it is or should be, the outward reflection of his inner self -- a comfortable, livable, and yet exciting expression of the person he is and the life he leads. But the overwhelming percentage of homes are furnished by women. What of the bachelor and his need for a place to call his own? Here's the answer, Playboy's penthouse apartment, home for a sophisticated man of parts, a fit setting for his full life and a compliment to his guests of both sexes. Here a man, perhaps like you, can live in masculine elegance.

At first glance, it obviously looks like a hell of a fine place to live and love and be merry, a place to relax in alone or to share for intimate hours with some lucky lass, a wonderful setting for big or small parties -- in short, a bachelor's dream place. It is all these, but it's more, too -- thanks to the fact that it doesn't follow the conventional plan of separated rooms for various purposes. Instead, there are two basic areas, an active zone for fun and partying and a quiet zone for relaxation, sleep and such.

The living room, with its cozy shadowbox fireplace suggests a tête-à-tête on the couch -- but it's just as inviting to a cordial crowd of fellow hi-fi enthusiasts. The electronic entertainment center, recessed in the giant storage wall that separates living room from foyer, contains binaural hi-fi, FM, TV, tape recorder, movie and slide projectors. And merely moving that blue Saarinen armchair makes living room and dining room one -- for gala entertaining. Kitchen and dining room, too, may be used separately or together, thanks to the sliding Shoji screens which divide them. These areas comprise the apartment's active zone, which was described in detail last month.

A huge bed dominates the penthouse bedroom. This is a magnificent sleeping platform of veneer plywood on steel legs, 8 feet long and 4-1/2 feet wide. The 4" airfoam mattress stops short enough of the foot so that the platform's end serves as a bench on which to slouch while donning or doffing shoes and socks.

Casement windows stretch across one entire wall, framing an ever-changing, living mural of our man's city. In the corner nook formed by windows and the Modern fold door which closes off the study, is a charmed circle where a bachelor may have a romantic nightcap with a chosen guest. Grouped here are a Saarinen chair (the mate of the one in the living room), a walnut Eames chair and free-form Noguchi table. Across from you (but hidden in the illustration by the brick wall) is a hanging wall cabinet wherein is cannily concealed a built-in bar and small refrigerator, just large enough for ice cubes, mixers and midnight snacks -- a boon to the barefoot bachelor in PJs who's reluctant to trek to the kitchen for his good-night potation, or perhaps unwilling to interrupt the dulcet dialogue he's been sharing.

Now, we've sipped the nocturnal dram and it is bed time; having said "nighty-night" (or "come along, now, dearest") to the last guest, it's time to sink into the arms of Morpheus (or a more comely substitute). Do we go through the house turning out the lights and locking up? No sir: flopping on the luxurious bed, we have within easy reach the multiple controls of its unique headboard. Here we have silent mercury switches and a rheostat that control every light in the place and can subtly dim the bedroom lighting to just the right romantic level. Here, too, are the switches which control the circuits for front door and terrace window locks. Beside them are push buttons to draw the continuous, heavy, pure-linen, lined draperies on sail track, which can insure darkness at morn -- or noon. Above are built-in speakers fed by the remotely-controlled hi-fi and radio based in the electronic entertainment installation in the living room. On either side of the bed are storage cupboards with doors that hinge downward to create bedside tables. Within are telephone, with on-off switch for the bell, and miscellaneous bed-time items. Soft mood music flows through the room and the stars shine in the casements as you snuggle down.

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At the start of a new day, the chime alarm sounds, morning music comes on and the headboard's automatic controls again prove their value: reaching lazily to the control panel, you press the buttons for the kitchen circuits and immediately the raw bacon, eggs, bread and ground coffee you did the right things with the night before (while the ultrasonic washer was doing the dishes) start their metamorphosis into crisp bacon, eggs fried just right, and steaming-hot fresh java. Now you flip the switch that draws the curtains and opens the terrace doors to let in the brisk morning air. Don't just lie there, man, rise and shine!

Just off the bedroom is the bath; you shave and shower and as you towel off you go back to the bedroom, but now you stay in the dressing area, behind the bed's seven-foot-tall headboard, which affords complete privacy and access to the bath without requiring you to cross any part of the bedroom proper -- a blessing to the bachelor whose hospitality extends to a planned or impromptu overnight guest. On this side the unit is equipped with sliding doors (one of them mirrored) behind which are dust-proof trays for haberdashery, a rotating tie rack and, below, a boot locker with a hand-height, suspended row of lever-operated shoe trees. The locker's hinged door, when open, forms a bench. Here, too, is the cedar-lined built-in blanket chest and, above it, storage shelves for linen. Opposite is an entire closet wall with separate compartments for winter wear, summer wear, sports clothes, dress clothes, and a guest closet with lighted, built-in vanity. The closet at the bathroom end of the wall is warm-air dried and has brass fixtures for hanging huge turkish towels and terry-cloth robes; the one at the opposite end has sliding shelves of cedar for flat-lying sweaters and knit T-shirts. Mirrors on the insides of the two center doors, which open in opposite directions, combine with the one on the head-board unit to form a three-way mirror.

The out-size bathroom is as practical as the more usual two-bath arrangement and carries out the apartment's feeling of spaciousness. The room actually comprises two areas, separated by a sliding screen of translucent glass, so that the one adjoining the bedroom can be completely private while the other remains accessible from the apartment's active zone. Suppose early guests arrive before their host is quite ready for them: with the sliding screen closed he can shower and dress undisturbed while they freshen up on the other side. The lavatory itself is completely enclosed, ensuring total privacy. In addition to the John, it has a bidet, magazine rack, ash tray and telephone. (Let's face it, there are bachelors, as well as some of their guests, who like to spend quite a lot of time in the throne room -- maybe as a hangover from younger days of living at home, when it was the only place to get away from it all -- hence we've made this posh head a comfort station in every sense of the phrase.)

The bathroom impresses with its size and colorfulness. With the screen rolled back, there's a continuous counter with two wash basins (one on either side of the screen) with backlighted mirror above. A row of compartmented drawers below, whose handles are towel racks, hold the potions, lotions, notions, sundries and other mysteries which ordinarily crown conventional medicine chests. One entire wall is decorated with bold and vigorous primitive paintings reminiscent of the prehistoric drawings in the caves of Lascaux. In the corner is a huge, rectangular, recessed tub which serves as the floor of the shower. The shower head -- and the pipes leading to it -- are concealed in massed foilage growing on both sides of the picture-window pane which divides this end of the bath from the dressing area of the bedroom. What with the cave paintings and the wall of greenery from which the spray descends, you may feel as though you're bathing under a waterfall in an exotic outdoor setting -- an impression you can enhance if it strikes your fancy by turning on the sun lamps recessed in to the ceiling. (Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps -- or the Chico Hamilton Quartet -- tuned in loud on the bathroom hi-fi speaker will accentuate the mood.) For more serious sun bathing we've a Knoll slat bench with recessed sun lamps in the ceiling above it -- provided with a foam-rubber mat covered in waterproof Naugahyde, it is a handy place to stretch out and luxuriate in a tropical glow all the year 'round.

• • •

Even a bachelor in his own domain needs a place like our apartment's study, where he can get away from the rest of the house and be really alone, where if he wishes he can leave papers on the desk in seeming disarray (actually in that precious disorder in which he alone can lay hands on just what he wants). This is the sanctum sanctorum, where women are seldom invited, where we can work or read or just sit and think while gazing into the fireplace.

Continuous storage cabinets range the full length of the study's window wall, providing ample storage for typewriter, dictaphone, stationery, office supplies, and hobby gear or scale-model collection. Imposingly jutting from these is the man-size desk, with comfortable swivel chair by Knoll (#71S, $177). On the other side of the desk is an easy chair (Miller #5484, $350). Here on special occasions you will seat the business guest with whom you want to work in your own surroundings and undisturbed -- or as a rare exception, the admiring lass whose fond gaze makes poring over your papers more enjoyable.

Flanking the fireplace is an occasional table to hold pipes, humidor, books and magazines; and an enormously comfortable upholstered, contoured Herman Miller armchair with foot stool, a lord-of-the-domain chair reserved for you alone, which holds all of you evenly supported in the right places and fits in with your relaxed posture so that you and the chair are like twin spoons nested together. On the other side of the fireplace is a globe of the world, lit from within, craftily pinpricked so that major cities shine out as flecks of brightness.

The entire third wall is bookcase, floor to ceiling. The two bottom shelves are wide and deep enough to hold record albums, stamp albums, your biggest picture books and encyclopedias. The rest of the bookcase, on up, is shelves of normal width and depth, except that there is a space 20 inches high between the wide and narrow shelves, tube-lighted, providing a surface on which to lay open a dictionary or an atlas. At either end of this bookcase wall are binaural hi-fi speakers which connect with the sound equipment in the foyer wall. With a study like this, even the most dedicated pub crawler or theatre and nightclub buff will be tempted to stay at home of an evening, content within his own surroundings and savoring the city's glamour via the enchanted view from the window wall. But suppose the playboy master of the house decides that now, with the winter season starting, he wants to hold a real big shindig. By folding back that accordion door between study and bedroom the two are merged into one magnificent room, with the continuous carpeting from end to end and the matched draperies tying it all together. Now the whole apartment's a grownup's playground for rollicking, fancy-free fun 'til dawn lights the windows and it's time for prairie oysters and breakfast.

• • •

Throughout the apartment, its strikingly different atmosphere is achieved by the bold though harmonious use of solid color and interesting texture. Entering the bedoom from the living room we are immediately aware of the textural difference between the living room's cork floor and the luxurious wall-to-wall carpeting of the bedroom, which seems to invite a barefoot romp but which also bespeaks rich smartness. The dramatic brick wall between living room and bath projects into the quiet area, establishing visual continuity between the apartment's two zones and providing a sight barrier between the living room and the sleeping area of the bedroom, just as the headboard unit visually separates sleeping and dressing. Lighting -- ample and glareless -- is provided by those conical fixtures called "top hats," which are recessed into the ceiling at strategic locations. Lamps, which would impede the clean, open look of the place, are virtually dispensed with; there is a complete absence of bric-a-brac, patterned fabrics, pleats and ruffles.

• • •

This is the kind of pre-planning in design and furnishing which makes Playboy's penthouse apartment a bachelor haven of virile good looks, a place styled for a man of taste and sophistication. This is his place, to fit his moods, suit his needs, reflect his personality.

For further information on any aspect of the Playboy penthouse apartment, write Playboy Reader Service, 11 E. Superior Street, Chicago 11, Illinois.

Bedroom

Above: Hidden by the brick wall in the illustration at left, the bedroom includes wall-hung, clear maple cabinets (Knoll #121, $249) with white lacquer innards fitted out as a bar.

Below: Laminated walnut chair designed by Eames, made by Miller (LCW, $58) is part of the bedroom's lounge-area furniture grouping.

Below: Classic Noguchi table built by Miller (#50 IN, $350) has thick, clear glass top resting on black lacquer legs, is nucleus of bedroom lounge area. It is sturdy and, of course, alcohol proof.

Custom headboard-storage unit creates a dressing area.

Bathroom

Below: The bathroom's slat bench (Knoll #400, $84) in natural ash has foam rubber cushion cover for sun-lamp bathing.

At bottom: Upholstered vanity seat is by Miller (#4672, $56)

Top left: By all odds your chair of chairs will be this contour lounge set by Herman Miller (chair #670, footstool #671, $605 for both) which will hold you in free-floating luxury.

Top right: Close-up look at texture of continuous carpet used in bedroom and study----a tweedy, wool-rayon mixture.

Lower left: Knoll cabinets line the study's window wall; shown in walnut, available in other woods; in 4 and 6 foot lengths (#542, $264; #541, $381)

Lower right: Desk is one of Knoll's #1500 series which offers 12 different pedestal arrangements, ranges from $450 to $550; the upholstered swivel chair is by Knoll (#71 S, $177).

Study