The Playboy Town House

The discerning city-dweller of individual ways and comfortable means is turning more and more to the superb outlets for decorative and architectural self-expression inherent in the town house. He is beguiled by its intrinsic advantages of privacy and spaciousness coupled with a metropolitan location just a shift of the gears away from myriad urban attractions. Recognizing this, playboy has taken a city lot in a typical brownstone neighborhood and transformed it from street to stern into a modishly swinging manor for the modern man. The requisites we set for architect-designer R. Donald Jaye in laying out the Playboy Town House were many; the limitations (except for those imposed by the necessarily constricting 25-foot width of the normal city lot) were few. Our urban home was to offer the expansive, nonconfining elbowroom, legroom and luxurious living room usually identified with an exurban retreat, and have the relatively carefree conveniences that an on-the-go bachelor could maintain with a minimum number of servants beating about the preserve.

Our specific requirements were: a two-car garage in front; a full-size indoor swimming pool with adjacently recreation area; an integrated dining-kitchen-and-bar area; a spacious living room with fireplace and all the appurtenances (automatically controlled) of gracious living; a combination office-study: a large guest bedroom with its own bath and dressing room; a generously proportioned master bedroom featuring a further refinement of the Playboy Bed (November 1959), a fireplace, oversize bath and dressing room: and a roof sun deck for summer simmering.

Having used the above as a yardstick for our digs and allowing ourself a budget liberal enough to fill our needs, we've created a tastefully lavish urban approach to the fine art of leisurely living suitable for the most demanding gentleman.

The house has been divided approximately into thirds; the 40-foot-long front area of the house consists of the ground-level garage, the first-floor rec area, the second-floor living room, and the third-floor master bedroom. The 25-foot-long middle portion is taken up by the pool with an unbroken area overhead rising three floors to the sliding skylight. The 40-foot back section is made up of the ground-level servants' quarters, the first-floor dining room, bar and kitchen, the second-floor study, and the third-floor guest bedroom. The upper floors have been planned to provide maximum privacy, with locks on stairways, passageways and elevator doors to keep the study and both bedrooms traffic-free when desired. Like the Roman atrium villa built around a central court, our contemporary dwelling centers about the pool, with access -- via balconies -- to a view from sliding skylight above to pool below. Now let's take a tour of the finished product.

As we turn our high-performance gran turismo coupe into the driveway, we point out to our comely companion the Playboy Town House's striking exterior. All floor-to-ceiling glass and masonry, the Town House stands in glamorous contrast to, yet in curiously pleasing harmony with, the post-Victorian brownstones that surround it. As the fading rays of the late-afternoon sun still provide sufficient exterior illumination, the spotlights fixed beneath the roof's overhang have not yet been turned on.

We swing into the open two-carport, brightly illumined by recessed overhead lighting, and step out into a garage that is kept warm all year round by radiant heat from the concrete floor; heat is also supplied as an additional function of the overhead lights.

Guiding our guest to the right rear of the carport, we unlock the rabbit-escutcheoned teak door (guests arriving later may be screened via closed-circuit TV and intercom before being admitted) and lead the way down a richly grained teak-walled passageway. Passing an open-work stairway on our right which leads to the first floor, we pause momentarily for a look through an outsized picture window on the left which affords a dolphin's-eye view into the deepest part of the pool (the subsurface pool window and several other ingenious ideas for the leisurely life were projections of the Playboy Mansion, Playmate Holiday House Party, December 1961). Unoccupied now, the pool is one of the recreational focal points of the house.

Continuing on our way, we enter, at the end of the corridor, a handsomely finished, electronically controlled elevator that will whisk us in silent swiftness to the first-floor level. The elevator (text continued on page 92 features a phone for last-minute, can't-wait calls. As we step out, we're facing the front of the house.

On our right is an impressive three-story pool area panoplied by a skylight that in warm weather can be opened by remote control. On the opposite wall, a fountain's misty spray softens the rugged stone wall that extends from skylight to poolside. Equally striking is the three-story-high wall of teak on our left. Once more, we encounter the stairway coming up from ground level and continuing on up to the living room.

Forsaking this for the moment, we head into the poolside rec area. The floor is set with richly hued mosaic tiles regally reminiscent of a Roman lavacrum. Against the fieldstone wall are teak cabinets to hold street clothes, bathing gear and terry beach towels. Occupying the area between the cabinets and front windows is a tiled steam-and-shower room for pre- and post-natant care, and a dressing room. Casually strewn about the spacious rec area is a colorful plenitude of oversized foam-filled cushions to facilitate poolside lazing. With music piped in from the living-room sound system, it can be turned into a poshly informal dance palace. Windowward are a table and chairs, for less vigorous games of chance and skill. In another corner, a standing plant is one of many islands of greenery.

Heading back past the pool to check on dinner preparations, we see that the handsomely modern dining table has already been set with candelabra and rich linen for dinner à deux. The Knoll Pedestal dining set lends itself to formal dining when the automatically controlled sliding drapes shut off the pool and rec area; it assumes an alfresco air when the broad vistas of the pool remain in full view during casual snacking.

We guide our one-girl tour back into the kitchen, passing on our right a 12-foot-long upholstered bar that's gleamingly sentineled by a set of Laverne clear-plastic-backed, stainless-steel bar stools and adorned with a martini-filled, frostily chilled pitcher awaiting our pleasure. The ceiling overhead (and throughout the house) resembles a panoramic glass waffle; its square recesses discreetly house lighting which can be automatically rheostated down to a romantically chiaroscuro dimness or turned up to a gala brightness.

As we enter the kitchen we pass on our left a long counter that serves both as a buffet and room divider. The counter forms an ell with a center island of cabinets containing an ultramodern built-in electric range and grille. Suspended dramatically over the range is a sparkling stainless-steel stove hood. Centered in the left-side wall between off-the-floor cabinets are both a conventional ovenbroiler and a look-ma-no-heat radar oven. All the sundry electric appliances designed to allow the cook to devote all his energies to pleasuring a gourmet's palate are out-of-sight built-ins.

Toward the rear of the left-side wall is the houseman's desk located below a central control panel (identical panels are found in the living room and master bedroom; smaller versions are in all the other rooms) which is the omnipresent electronic brain of the house. From this one multibuttoned, many-dialed source, the houseman can open and close the sliding drapes and glass doors, the pool's skylight, control the lighting throughout the house, and precisely regulate the heating and air conditioning.

The air-conditioning system, we point out, is unique -- combining the best features of circulating warm air and radiant heating. The design dates back to the Romans -- warm or cool air is circulated through metal forms imbedded in the floor, wall registers release the air into the desired areas. The electronically filtered air in the house is crystal clear of dust, smoke and odors, cutting maintenance to a minimum.

The panel board also houses an AMFM tuner and telephone-type dial for selecting records and tapes, housed in the living room, for broadcast to any part of the house. Either side of over 500 records can be chosen by this device. The tapes are played in the same fashion. Amplifying controls are also right at hand. Here, too, are the intercom and closed-circuit TV to save footsteps.

To the rear of the bar are two doors; one leads to the rear service stairs and the servants' quarters, the other opens into the pantry which houses a sommelier's dream of a wine cellar and a cornucopic deep-freeze.

Before taking the elevator up to the study (the only entrance other than the service stairway), we pause at the bar for a sampling of the pre-prandial potables and some quiet conversation, and continue on with lightened gait.

We step out of the elevator into the sitting area, where an eight-foot Thayer-Coggin couch and twin Herman Miller pull-up chairs surrounding a coffee table are backdropped by a blaze of abstract-expressionist art strikingly hung on the fieldstone wall.

Farther back is the study area, our sanctum sanctorum. An informal table-type desk forms a promontory off the custom-built wall cabinetry that houses an electric typewriter, dictaphone, and all the paraphernalia pertinent to maintaining an office away from the office.

Here, too, are the tools of less vocational pursuits--shelves lined with books, a standing globe, and a smaller version of the master control panel to pipe in sound suitable for the occasion, and control the drapes and glass panels --and a compact but complete bar for a something-stronger-than-coffee break. Deskside, our executive seat is an Albano swivel chair. A bathroom to the rear rounds out our world-within-a-world retreat.

Summoning the elevator, we continue the tour to the guest bedroom on the floor above. Underfoot, thick wall-to-wall carpeting stretches from the Herman Miller table and chairs, commanding a view of the pool and the front of the house, to the full-length rear window. Past the Hollywood bed with its head-board replete with built-in reading lights, storage space and well-stocked bookshelves, beyond a Herman Miller coconut lounge chair, a room-dividing wardrobe sets off the dressing area where a compelling piece of abstract sculpture atop a Herman Miller vanity provides dramatic contrast to a large baroque-framed mirror. Backing the mirrored wall is a luxuriously ceramic-tiled bathroom.

Leaving the guest room, we head across the four-foot-wide catwalk over the pool area toward the master bedroom. We linger awhile to let our vis-à-vis dig the vasty view created by the open center third of the house. Overhead we can see the last deep-red rays of the sun through the broad skylight; ahead of us are the balconies for the living room and master bedroom; as our guest looks back over her shoulder, she can see, past the shimmering reflections of the pool, the balconies of the study, the guest room rising over the dining area, and to their right, the elevator which connects all floors, from the ground level to the roof sun deck.

We enter the master bedroom through the sliding glass door. Here, dominating the room, is without question the Town House's single most dramatic piece of furniture. Set in circular splendor midst the deep pile of our wall-to-wall handcrafted Afghanistan carpeting reigns the Playboy Rotating Bed. The bed is a marvel of mechanical ingenuity. The touch of a button can start the bed and headboard turning and stop them at any point of a full circle. The headboard is fully outfitted to fill any needs of its bedded owner; the necessary accouterments for reading, late-hour supping or sipping, listening or viewing are to be found at one's fingertips. A pair of the headboard's panels swing out and reverse to form upholstered back rests. Between the two panels, there's a third that folds out as a bed-top table to hold our counterpane diversions. Bar and refrigerator are also built in; here, too, is another master control panel, containing, in addition to a full set of automatic controls for the entire house, a remote-control unit for the color-TV suspended overhead 'twixt the bed and the poolside window.

If we wish we can turn the bed so that we face the gemütlich warmth of the (concluded on page 105) Playboy Town House (continued from page 92)Uni-bilt fireplace set against the stone wall. Next to the fireplace is a George Tanier cone chair. The draperies, here and throughout the house, are of natural, unbleached linen unaffected by heat or sunlight; their neutral shade provides an unobtrusive backdrop for the house's many dramatic highlights.

Our clothes are compartmentalized in teak cabinets lining the stone wall and in a wardrobe that ells out from the cabinets setting off a dressing area that leads into the master bathroom -- an enclosure of Olympian proportions. Its focal point is a tiled tub whose size is akin to a miniature swimming pool, three feet deep and six feet square; its thermostatic controls keep the water in the tub at a constant temperature. Counterbalancing the tub is a ceramic-tiled vanity with twin lavatories and a wide mirror. A nearby cabinet contains bath gear, robes, pajamas and other apparel.

We now conduct our companion down the circular staircase to the tour's last stop -- the living room, and she is immediately impressed by the subtle and felicitous blend of the classic with the contemporary. To our right, overlooking the pool, a chess table of hand-inlaid teak is flanked by a pair of period Dixon Powdermaker high-back chairs. Across the room and dominating it, a huge, eight-foot-wide hooded fireplace casts a warm glow into all corners.

Stretching out from either side of the fireplace are darkly handsome teak cabinets which form an elegant entertainment wall. The right-hand cabinets house, in addition to two of the speakers, book and magazine shelves, storage space, the intercom-master control panel, and AM-FM tuner and amplifier. To the left of the fireplace, an electronically operated stereo tape-and-LP center runs the length of the cabinet. By pressing the appropriate keys we can effortlessly program music suitable to our mood to last through the evening. Above the console, between the other two speakers, a 21-inch color-TV screen is discreetly tucked behind the paneling when not in use.

The fireplace area presents the perfect meeting ground for warm, gracious, casual living. Facing the flames is a sumptuously upholstered Dunbar sofa set off on one side by a pair of leather-and-stainless-steel Laverne chairs and on the other by a Laverne tulip chair.

A Howard Miller bubble lamp on the sofa's end table may be used to create a cozy pool of light when the recessed overhead lighting is dimmed or extinguished. Scattered over the deep-piled, brilliantly hued tangerine rug are more oversized, brightly striped cushions, invitingly handy for fireside reading, listening or just plain lights-low relaxing.

On the opposite teak-paneled wall Willem de Kooning's slashingly stroked Duck Pond casts its own abstract-expressionist incandescence over the room. Beneath it, an antique Spanish cabinet has been converted into a bar. Its top's center portion folds back, raising a work shelf containing all essential accouterments. Flanking the cabinet-bar are a pair of Laverne three-legged stainless-and-leather chairs.

When the drapes are drawn back, the floor-to-ceiling view through the front window is strikingly panoramic. Before it, on call to ease our quiet contemplation of the city's skyline, is a Herman Miller leather-and-wood lounge chair and ottoman.

Our tour completed, we settle down in front of the fire to await the arrival of the other guests. In showing our companion about, we've reaffirmed our belief that the Town House represents the best of all possible worlds for the unattached, affluent young man happily wedded to the infinite advantages of urbia. In our estimation, the Playboy Town House is the ultimate in in-town enclaves. We believe, too, that it incorporates ideas which may be adapted to other urban settings for the man with an urbane outlook, a mind of his own, and a tasteful appreciation of the life of elegant ease.