Playboy Mansion West

As most Playboy readers know, the official headquarters of the remarkable corporate empire known as Playboy Enterprises, Inc., is the 37-story Playboy Building on Chicago's Magnificent Mile along North Michigan Avenue. In this imposing architectural landmark, topped by the rotating Bunny Beacon--reportedly the most powerful sea-and-air-navigation light ever built--Playboy editors toil over story outlines, photographers pose Playmates of the Month, architects draw up plans for new Playboy Clubs and Resort-Hotels, secretaries pound their typewriters, artists sketch illustrations and mail-room clerks receive, sort and distribute thousands of letters, manuscripts and subscription order forms daily. But the true nerve center of the operation, aficionados have long realized, is a building some blocks away--the stately. 74-room brick-and-stone edifice known as the Playboy (text continued on page 108) Mansion--where, since 1960, Hugh Hefner has resided and presided over every phase of the company's activities. You read about it in Playboy's January 1966 issue.

"King of the Status Dropouts," New Journalist Tom Wolfe called Hefner after a visit to the Chicago Mansion. "Hefner has had the publicity and financial success to compete for status at the highest level," Wolfe observed. But, he continued, Hefner has not chosen the traditional route, that of going out and being seen at all the right places; rather, he has brought the outside in, not merely to the building with the rotating beacon, and not just to the building with the rotating bed, but "deep inside his house--at the center of his bed. The center of the world!" Wolfe saw it this way: "Hefner's genius has been to drop out of the orthodox status competition and to use money and technology and to convert his habitat into a stage and to get on the stage, not in the spectator seats, and to be the undisputed hero himself." It is, Wolfe concluded, "a controlled universe, with one's own self as king, dropped, not out, but in."

Well, wait till Wolfe sees what Hefner's dropped into now. As Playboy Enterprises expanded from publishing, clubs and club-hotels into the production of motion pictures, television programs and records, the boss began to spend an increasing amount of his time on the West Coast, where the business of show business is done. First step in meeting the logistical challenge, late in the Sixties, was the acquisition of the sleek black Big Bunny jet, a stretched version of the DC-9, with its interior transformed into a contemporary bachelor's pad and the familiar Rabbit logo emblazoned on its tail. Now Hefner could travel back and forth from Chicago to Los Angeles in privacy, a convenience that allowed him to transact business with other Playboy executives at 30,000 feet. But once on the West Coast, he felt the need for facilities similar to those he'd become accustomed to in Chicago. What was needed was a Playboy Mansion West, and in 1970, Hefner found just the sort of property he was looking for in a replica of an English Tudor manor set on five and a half acres in Holmby Hills, just outside Los Angeles. The place, as they say, had "possibilities"--not the least of which, Hefner quickly saw, was a chance to take advantage of Southern California's balmy weather and tropical greenery and let the sunshine into his plans for a second business-and-pleasure dome. So architects, landscape artists and battalions of workmen were recruited to turn flat, rich topsoil into gently rolling hills, to transplant entire forests of vegetation and even to build shelters among the trees for a private menagerie. Talk about your California dreamin'. . . . Like its Chicago counterpart, Mansion West has become a meccas for the bright, the beautiful and the talented, who are naturally attracted to its very special atmosphere of hospitality--an ambience that takes its cue from the master of the house.

• • •

Hef is a uniquely casual host. Even though the house is usually filled with guests, he comes and goes as he pleases, and he wants them to feel that same freedom. So he keeps the scheduled events to a minimum: Most nights there's a buffet dinner for 10, or 20, or 30 or more, that goes on from six to eight, or nine or ten, and then a feature movie, or maybe two, and then games, maybe until dawn, and then a splash in that crazy pool, and then breakfast, and then. . . . But that's nothing compared with the gathering of the clan on Sundays--something of a legend in a town jaded with lavish parties--when artists and actors and other friends and the most amazingly beautiful girls throng to the buffet laid out on the pool-side patio and. . . . But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Let's begin with a weekday morning at nine just a few short months ago. One of those great Southern California mornings. You're on a crest in Holmby Hills, the most elegant of L.A.'s many posh communities. You're awakened by the sunshine streaming through the windows of your second-floor guest bedroom, just down the hall from Hef's quarters. The Red Room, it's called. The walls, the plush carpeting, the velvet drapes are all a deep crimson. The first thing you're aware of after the sunshine is the silence--no sounds of the city at all. Los Angeles seems far away. You can't even see the city from your room, let alone hear it. You might as well be at a secluded country estate, though you know Sunset Boulevard is only two blocks away.

You remember your first impression of the place. Most people, on their initial visit, struggle for the right word and then just call it overwhelming or outasight. And it is--from the moment those tall, electrically operated iron gates open-sesame by remote control and you begin to ascend Mansion West's long, meandering drive. ("That driveway's so long it should have off ramps," one TV correspondent cracked to his audience while covering a party last year for a local station.) Dead ahead is a large white-marble frieze depicting a number of mythological maidens, one of whom has her feet demurely wrapped in a cloud. That's appropriate, because there is an ethereal, dreamlike quality to Mansion West. You're just a few hundred yards from rush-hour traffic, and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a forest. Then a break in the trees allows you a fleeting glimpse of the Mansion sitting atop a terraced lawn. Rounding one last curve, you arrive at the courtyard, swing past a white-marble center fountain with loon heads and cherubs spouting water and park beside the massive golden oak front door.

The Mansion itself is a graceful blend of Gothic and Tudor architecture. Ivy-covered stone walls with leaded windows rise to a slate roof, edged with burnished-copper drains, dotted with tall chimneys, castle-type turrets in the corners. You look past the courtyard to the rows of redwood, pine and spruce trees and flowering bushes, punctuated by flagstone paths. Writers from several magazines have searched for a proper phrase to describe the place: Rolling Stone's reporter called it a "miniaturized Versailles." A correspondent from the Chicago Tribune saw it as a "baronial castle" and pronounced the sight "awesome." A writer for New Times described it as "the real thing--paradise!"

Back inside the Red Room, a butler has already placed the L.A. Times outside your door. Wearing one of the terrycloth bathrobes that are provided in all guest rooms, you pick up the paper and walk down the thickly carpeted hall, past the electronics room, where Larry Stack, the resident electronics engineer on Mansion West's 24-hour staff, is fiddling with a console that can't be anything less elaborate than the computer controls for a moon shot. A few steps farther, past the door to Hefner's quarters, you pause at the head of a broad, twin-balustrade staircase that leads down to the Great Hall. Good name. It's a two-story, oak-beamed vastness that seems to elicit images of lords and dons sipping sherry at Oxford and Cambridge, or echo with the final notes of some string quartet once ensconced in one of three Gothic wood-carved balconies high up on the massive walls. But instead, you hear the rhythmic beat of Elton John wafting in from somewhere else and you remember that the hall was packed the night before with Hefner's friends--some dressed in robes, on their way to or from the Jacuzzi Grotto behind the house; some dressed to a Hollywood tee; guys in casual-chic jeans, girls in see-through blouses and dresses. This morning, as you descend the staircase, nodding to the pair of six-foot hand-carved wooden monkeys standing at the bottom with out-stretched palms--where gentlemen used to deposit their calling cards--the hall is splendid in its solitude, white-marble floor softly aglow.

You walk across the Great Hall under an ornate bronze chandelier to the Mediterranean Room, so named because of the dark-bamboo table and chairs, a sculptured fountain and green-tile floor: it's like an elegant little sitting room on the Italian Riviera. You sit at the end of the table that lets you look out onto the back yard, still glistening with dew. "Back yard" is inappropriate, an inadequate name for the greenery, waterfalls and exotic wildlife to be found just beyond those leaded windows. Nothing but (continued on page 114)Playboy Mansion West(continued from page 108) treetops, hillsides and blue sky as far as you can see. And--at this hour of the morning--not another guest in sight. It's a great time to be alone; Hef's kingdom is at your command.

You push the black button set in a small walnut box on the table. These portable electronic boxes--a creation of Playboy's own engineering staff--are to be found in all the rooms on the main floor of the house; they send a signal to the kitchen staff for service. They are the subject of jokes among regular guests at the Mansion; agent-manager-turned-producer Lee Wolfberg, an old friend of Hef's from Chicago Rush Street days, says he had them installed at his house, but when he pushes them, nothing happens. What happens here is that a gentle chime rings in the kitchen, the door swings open and a butler appears, ready to take your order.

This morning, it's John who answers your call. As soon as he sees you, he goes back through the door into the kitchen and returns with a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. He knows the guests' tastes. Amid all the luxury of the Mansion, some of the small pleasures--like freshly squeezed orange juice--are the biggest treats. John takes your break-fast order and you ask what happened after you went to sleep last night. "Nothing special," he replies. "Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson were out in the Game House until about five A.M. Miss Benton and Mr. Hefner played backgammon for a while after the movie; they retired at two A.M. and had a snack sent up around four. Becky and Joni [Hefner's secretaries] and some of the others watched Fantasia and then Frankenstein. Omar Sharif was here for a while, but he left as soon as the backgammon game was over. A few went swimming and took a Jacuzzi after the rest of the guests went home." (The Jacuzzi is what regular call the oversized whirlpool baths custom-built for Mansion West and powered by Jacuzzi-type water jets.)

John delivers his report on the night's activities in the flat monotone of a Walter Cronkite commenting on the national budget, but there is an appreciative twinkle in his eye.

Shel Silverstein appears, wearing a loose-fitting bright-red bathrobe--bald head and bushy beard sticking out on top, bare legs below. Shel greets you in his curiously high-pitched gravelly voice, slouches into one of the chairs beside you and orders breakfast. He is another of Hef's longtime friends: an early contributor to the magazine with cartoons of his outrageous adventures around the world, he is better known today for his ability as a songwriter (A Boy Named Sue, Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball), which has won him a Grammy award.

"Is it true," you ask, "that you started your songwriting career making up jingles--many of them obscene--to entertain the Bunnies at the Chicago Mansion?"

"Yeah," he says, with a cackle.

Shel has just returned from three weeks in Nashville, where he's been writing material for various artists--and just cut a record of his own, his first as a performer in some time. "I think I'll call it Suck My Album," he says slyly. "That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

After a few days, or maybe a week or two, at the Mansion, Shel plans to head back up the Coast to his houseboat in Sausalito. He's a hard man to pin down; the one thing you can depend on is that Shel will show up without notice at the Mansion every few weeks--and disappear just as suddenly after an indeterminate stay.

That's the way it is with those who hang out at the house; they're a free-form floating family--maybe 30 or 40 regulars who come and go, group and regroup in ever-changing combinations. At any given time, you'll run across several of them somewhere on the property--provided, of course, that Hefner is in town. The cast of characters includes actors, artists, writers, comics, athletes, singers, musicians, stewardesses, models, directors and producers, backgammon and bridge champs, stars and starlets. Playmates and would-be Playmates, Bunnies, business executives, a hair stylist, a lawyer and a porn queen--an amazingly diverse group, most of whom, like Silverstein and Wolfberg, have a close relationship to Playboy, but all share a single similarity: their special friendship with Hefner and with one another. For all of them, Mansion West is a second home.

It's 11 o'clock. In the morning, all the action's in the Mediterranean Room, and by now, it's jumping like brunch at the Polo Lounge. This can be a difficult room to leave, because before one conversation ends, another's begun, and you never know who's going to come by. In the course of an hour, you might hear about the peculiarities of California politics (Hefner helped in the successful campaigns of Mayor Tom Bradley and Governor Jerry Brown--and both have been guests at Mansion West), the problems someone's having on his latest movie or what some girl said to Warren Beatty the night before (usually, yes).

One of Hefner's secretaries, Joni Mattis--a striking brunette who was a Playmate back in November 1960, as well as one of the original Bunnies in the first Playboy Club, in Chicago, that same year--is talking to a Playboy executive on the phone and shushing everybody from time to time so she can hear. Hef's other L.A. secretary, Becky Strick, a blonde in her late 20s who hasn't been a Playmate but looks like she should be, is huddled with Les Marshall, a handsome, soft-spoken Hawaiian who is Hefner's executive assistant. Les used to be aide-de-camp to the commanding general of the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam and now he, Becky and Joni are the personal liaisons between Hefner and the rest of the world, whenever he is on the West Coast--relaying messages, scheduling meetings, handling correspondence, planing trips, making up party lists, conveying instructions to Pauline Kingerley, the house manager, and Dick Hall, grounds and maintenance supervisor, handling dozens of daily requests from Hef on matters big and little. The three of them often spend several hours a day on the phone--communicating with Playboy's various offices in Chicago and L.A. The West Coast operations of Playboy Enterprises now included Playboy Productions (the motion-picture and television divisions), Playboy records and music publishing, the L.A. Playboy Club (recently relocated in elegant new facilities at Century City), photo-department offices and studio, Playboy Models, Playboy Limousine service (now leasing private yachts and planes as well as chauffeured limos), business and promotion offices and L.A. ad offices for Playboy, OUI and VIP.

Les, Becky and Joni must know when to interrupt Hefner while he's engaged in some other activity and when to see to it that he is not interrupted. One of the significant changes in Hef's lifestyle on the West Coast is that he no longer divides his work and play as clearly as he used to; they are now so interrelated that it's almost impossible to distinguish where one ends and the other begins, and he actually seems to accomplish more now with his new L.A. daylight schedule than he did in those round-the-clock work marathons as a recluse in his Chicago Mansion in the Sixties.

Over table talk you hear the easily recognizable shuffle of the master's slippers as he crosses the Great Hall and appears quite unexpectedly in the door-way. He's wearing his familiar blue pajamas with a matching robe and has the first Pepsi of the day in hand. He greets the gang around the table and then draw Becky and Les away for a short conversation about the day's schedule. Hef returns, Becky trailing him, note pad in hand. "Dick Rosenzweig wants to know if Bob Preuss can schedule a board-of-directors meeting out here a week from Friday."

"Here at the house--a week from Friday." Hef repeats her statement. "That's fine."

"Bob Gutwillig needs a couple of hours with you early next week to discuss preliminary negotiations with several Japanese firms regarding the franchising of Playboy Clubs and Resort-Hotels in that country and the possibility of our (continued on page 204)Playboy Mansion West(continued from page 114) producing a Japanese edition of the magazine on a copublishing basis similar to those we now have in Germany, Italy and France."

"OK. Let's make it Tuesday afternoon. And I'd like Dick in that meeting if he can make it."

There are several more items on Becky's note pad to be considered, and then they're done. Hef's first meeting of the day isn't until two, so he has some time to spare.

"Tennis, anyone?" he calls out to no one in particular, and goes bounding up the stairs in search of Barbi.

Hefner likes to think of Playboy Mansion West as a logical extension of the lifestyle he created in the Chicago Mansion, and the idea is the same: Create a total environment, staff it 24 hours a day and establish your own controls over when and where you work and play. But the West Coast climate has worked against this concept and the natural beauty of the grounds at Playboy Mansion West has lured Hefner out of doors--in the daylight, yet. The former world champion of late sleepers--who thrived on the idea that he had structured a world where time didn't matter, where he could start his day at dusk as often as not--now rarely gets up later than noon. He's been completely seduced by that Southern California sun and doesn't like to miss it. One joke around the house is that Hef discovered that he couldn't do a thing about the ridiculous hours the sun kept, so he decided to meet it halfway. The man who used to stay indoors for months at a time now sports a suntan and spends almost as much time in a swimsuit and tennis shorts as he does in pajamas.

Not long after noon, the Mediterranean Room empties out. It's time to be outdoors, and as you walk through the French doors onto the stone terrace, you blink in the sunlight. Your eyes adjust, but it takes a little longer to fully comprehend the scene that lies before you. A green carpet stretches out some 50 or 60 yards to a stream that meanders in leisurely fashion across the back of the property. At the water's edge are rows of brilliantly colored shrubs and flowers: on the other side, the lawn slopes gently upward to form a grassy knoll and, with the wooded area of a country club beyond, it appears to go on indefinitely--with no house or other sign of civilization to mar the natural beauty. Atop the knoll are three pink lawn ornaments--but no, these are live flamingos standing majestically on one leg, enjoying the warmth of the noonday sun. And on another grassy knoll nearby, four crowned cranes--African in origin and the official bird of Uganda--strut, elegantly oblivious of your presence.

Your vision is flanked on the left by a redwood forest that covers the lower slope of the property, first observed when you drove through the front gate. There are several dozen squirrel monkeys living in those trees and several have been coaxed out onto the lawn by guests with bits of banana, which they will take from your hand, then scamper to a safe distance and devour. Some of the braver members of the tribe will sit on your shoulder or lap while they eat, but these are timid creatures in their natural state and any sudden movement will send them scurrying back into the trees. Two of the females had babies last summer, and their tiny offspring cling to the mothers in piggy-back fashion, even when the mothers are leaping about in the upper limbs of the trees.

To your right is a lone, craggy coastal redwood that shields what appears to be an aquamarine lake. This is the swimming pool--an irregular crescent-shaped lagoon, edged in natural Palos Verdes stone, with giant granite boulders sticking out from the sides into the water here and there, further enhancing the natural effect. A hillock of rock, covered over with green vegetation, juts out into the center of the pool from one side; it is crowned with grassy lush foliage, flowers and several small Japanese black pines. Two waterfalls cascade down the rocky face of this minimountain into the pool below: behind one of the falls is a cavelike opening in the rock--leading to the Jacuzzi Grotto within. There are even little stone shelves beneath the surface, along the sides of the pool, so that bathers can sit and relax in the water when they are tired of swimming and other more energetic aquatic activities. This may be an ultimate in aquatic accommodations--not for the athletically inclined swimmer with images of Olympic medals in his head but for the romantic bather, who enjoys splashing under a waterfall with a friend, or for couples who want to cuddle on a secluded ledge in the water or stretch out in the sensuous sun on the warm flagstone patios that surround the water. This is a lagoon for lovers.

There is a stone bridge separating the pond from a stream that appears to be flowing out of it. This is an illusion, of course, as the swimming pool is chlorinated, while the stream and the small lake into which it flows are fresh water for the fish and birds. The pond--and another like it, on the other side of the lawn, at the edge of the redwood forest--is alive with Japanese koi in a variety of colors and sizes. When you approach the water, the fish crowd the edge of the pond in enthusiastic anticipation of being fed--leaping atop one another and very nearly flopping out of the water and onto the grass. Koi have no teeth and are so tame they will literally eat out of your hand.

The fish share the ponds with miniature mandarin ducks--with their colors so perfectly etched that they look like finely made decoys. There are also several macaws and a pair of white cockatoos perched on large sculptures of driftwood near the swimming pool and ponds. Macbeth, the oversized hyacinth macaw, and Merlin, a green-and-red military macaw, have personalities as pronounced as any dog or cat. Both refuse to stay on their perches if there is any activity of interest going on at poolside. Merlin, the more obstreperous of the two, is sweetness itself with those he likes but fearlessly aggressive with anyone who gains his disfavor.

One sunny afternoon last summer. CBS-TV taped a half-hour discussion on "Pleasure and Principle" between Hefner and Dr. Harvey Cox for Look Up and Live--a Sunday-morning program devoted to religious dialog. The program was taped in the yard--Hefner, Dr. Cox and the moderator seated around a table in front of the larger pond, with a lovely waterfall cascading down over rocks to the lake below. The cameramen took full advantage of the scenery, and flamingos, cranes, ducks and even fish are clearly visible in the background. Halfway through the show, however, Merlin became upset over how little attention he was receiving. He climbed down from his perch, swaggered across the grass in an obviously belligerent mood, and before anyone spotted him, he had climbed up the back of Dr. Cox's chair and onto his shoulder--where the camera could not avoid his presence, even on the tightest close-ups. Having successfully achieved his moment of television glory, and broken Dr. Cox's train of thought, he bit him on the ear.

After surveying this garden paradise of gently rolling hills, streams, waterfalls and wildlife, it is hard to believe that when the property was acquired four years ago, the back yard was an undistinguished, flat lawn that stretched out to a wire fence in the rear--separating the grounds from the golf course of The Los Angeles Country Club. The house itself was built in 1927 by Arthur Letts, Jr., son of a Los Angeles department-store tycoon, and he modeled it after an English manor known as Holdenby Lodge, in which his father had lived as a young man. (The name, pronounced "Holmby," was also given to the section of Los Angeles in which Mansion West stands: Holmby Hills.)

The property was owned for a time by Louis D. Statham, and Playboy acquired it from him. "It was a magnificent estate before, but it took Hef's genius to make it into the Shangri-La it is today," says an admiring friend.

Shangri-La is what Mansion West regulars call the place, and there are jokes about visitors' visibly aging when they leave the grounds. This Shangri-La is no Himalayan mystery, however. Ron Dirsmith, a former fellow of the American Academy in Rome and the architect who supervised most of the metamorphosis, says, "No matter what we built--the lakes and waterfalls, the stone bridge, the swimming pool, the bars and patios, all of it--we tried to make it look as if it had been there from the beginning.

"Of course," he adds, "when you work for Hef, you try to do it right, because he's such a stickler for detail."

Hef's attention to detail and yen for perfection are well known to any Playboy editor who has ever worked with him. Gene Siskel, the film critic for the Chicago Tribune and a good friend, recalls this amusing incident: "Hef had given specific, detailed instructions on the completion of the landscaping; he hadn't been in California for a couple of weeks, and I hadn't been there in more than a month, so all of us were really looking forward to seeing the changes that had been made. As soon as we pulled up to the front of the house, Hef was out of the limo and heading for the back yard to check everything out.

"The landscaping, the pools and waterfalls were all perfect to my eye. But there's just no way to stile the editor in Hef. Something was wrong; he was unhappy. He stalked across the grass and stared at the pond and exclaimed, 'Where the Hell are my Lily Pads?!"'

"It's Hef who makes this place so special for most of us," says Tom Gilbert, a new-found but very close California friend. "When he isn't here, the house is just another house. I'm sure it's the same way in Chicago, when he isn't there."

It's 12:30 now and Hef's back downstairs in his tennis whites--with Barbi at his side, similarly attired. He and Barbi just celebrated the sixth anniversary of their relationship, and they're holding hands as they cross the lawn. Hef is obviously not thinking about lily pads today. They have taken only a few steps when Momma Dog and Poppa Dog, the two giant sheep dogs that have been playing on the grass, spot them. A couple of hundred pounds of canine affection comes bounding across the lawn--almost knocking Barbi off her feet. Fully grown, and the parents of seven fully grown sheep dogs that live at the Chicago Mansion and the Playboy Resort-Hotels in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Great Gorge, New Jersey, these two still have the playful personalities of puppies. Curiously enough, however, the dogs never bother the birds or the small monkeys--who spend a part of every afternoon playing on the lawn. None of the animals hassle or hurt one another.

"What do you expect in paradise?" remarks Hef with a smile.

Even more curious, none of the birds or animals seem to have any interest in leaving the property. Once, a little squirrel monkey went over the fence and snatched a golf ball off the green in front of a stunned golfer, but he came right back--carrying the ball, unfortunately. All of the Mansion's furry and feathered friends appear to be just that--friends.

Mansion West even has a bird who "came to dinner"--in the manner of the man in the vintage Broadway play. A large black raven flew into the yard one day three years ago, made friends with the macaws and has been around ever since. Hef named him Rasputin, and he and Macbeth became real pals. When they walk across the lawn together--Macbeth with a bit of a swagger and Rasputin with a gimpy little hop--they look like Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.

The pets in paradise are so at home that the ducks occasionally sneak over and take a swim in the pool, and once Hef caught them in the Grotto (though they hadn't turned on the Jacuzzi).

Yogi and Terri, the two woolly monkeys, are upset at having been ignored. One of the several young men--all of them zoology majors at UCLA--who tend the animals at Mansion West takes two bananas out of a nearby feedbox and hands them to Hef. Terri is happy just getting the banana, but Yogi wants affection as well. These primates are very human in their behavior. The bananas gone, Yogi snatches Hef's half-empty Pepsi and swigs it down just like--well, it looks awfully familiar. "You know," Barbi remarks thoughtfully, "if Yogi learned to smoke a pipe, he could run things while you're away."

"I thought he did," says Hef.

As you walk back across the grass toward the pool with Barbi and Hef, you watch the cranes preening their black, gold and deep-purple finery--and then you see the small, pretty raccoon that has been hiding in the bushes at the foot of the knoll; she is wading in the brook--washing her face in the water with her dainty hands, her behind twitching. You later learn that her name is Raquel.

"That Hef has got so much class," cracked comedian Jackie Gayle when he first met the new addition to the Mansion menagerie, "he even bought his cat a raccoon coat."

The koi are jumping about madly as Hef and Barbi pass, so they pause to feed them--then each of the macaws in turn.

You think you've come to the end of this particular animal kingdom when the sound of something large bearing down on you from behind makes you turn just in time to see an apparition in white gallop by: It's Lambert! The Bolivian llama nearly bowls you over, stops on a dime, and immediately commences gnawing on Hef's elbow. For Lambert, elbows appear to be a special delicacy, but although his jaws are firm, he never eats between meals and no visitor has yet been nibbled away. One of the animal attendants attends to Lambert, leading the affectionate Bolivian away.

Hef and Barbi lead the way across the small stone bridge to a large patio beside the pool. There the sun worshipers lie in simmering splendor. Peter Lawford is the only male in a row of beautiful basting bodies--some bikinied, some topless and some bottomless, too.

"I like the company you keep, Peter," Hef says.

"Yeah!" Peter replies, flashing that boyish smile of his.

Janice Pennington, one of Playboy's most popular Playmates (May 1971), opens her eyes at the sound of Hef's voice. "Hi, Hef," she says, shading her eyes and smiling, as he bends down to kiss her forehead.

"Where's Ann?" he asks, referring to Janice's equally smashing kid sister.

"She's gone to Vegas with Elvis," Janice replies.

"Well, you can tell her that her Playmate test shots look good," Hef says. "I guess it runs in the family."

"Hey, that's great! Do I get a finder's fee?" Janice asks with a laugh. She and Barbi, who met each other--and Hef--when they were regulars on Playboy After Dark, the syndicated TV show, are now co-owners of Granny's Attic, a new antique shop in Aspen. For a moment or two, the girls rap about business, while Hef strolls by the line of bronze bodies--flashing on the title of a Roger Vadim film of a few years ago: Pretty Maids All in a Row.

"Ah, just another typical day at the Mansion," he says with a sigh.

Hefner makes no secret of the fact that one of Los Angeles' great attractions for him is its women. "There are probably more beautiful women living in Southern California than anywhere else in the world," he says, and, if pressed, he'll offer you his personal theory as to why this is so: Handsome men and beautiful women came to Hollywood throughout the Twenties, during the Depression and in the years following World War Two, drawn not only by the seductive climate but also by the glamor associated with the world's entertainment capital, and they hoped to find a place for themselves in some part of the movie industry. The majority of these would-be Harlows, Garbos and Gables never even got inside a studio, but they settled here, taking jobs as waitresses, secretaries and factory workers, and eventually got married and had beautiful children. This may explain why a disproportionately large percentage of Playboy's Playmates comes from this part of the country. Hef admits that his theory has never been scientifically tested, but it is certainly true that a remarkable number of uncommonly lovely women seem to find their way through the gates of Mansion West.

Tamara Dobson, the black Amazon star of Cleopatra Jones, waves to Hef and Barbi from the shallow end of the pool as they pass.

One of the most pleasant ways to get to the tennis court is to wander through the Greenhouse-Aviary. It had been an ordinary greenhouse before--three rooms filled with white tables covered with potted flowers and plants; it's now an exotic tropical jungle. Flowering bushes edge winding stone walks that lead you through a rock-walled green twilight, under overhanging trees and vines, past splashing waterfalls and salt-water aquariums stocked with rare fish, past hand-hewn stone niches big enough for two and past several hundred species of chattering tropical birds--from tiny Gouldian finches to giant South American toucans with brightly colored beaks so vivid they seem to be hand-painted. Hef and Barbi linger there a little--in front of the cage of lovebirds; the original pair was a gift from Barbi on Valentine's Day two years ago--but being lovebirds, there are many more now.

Several friends have gathered at the tennis court--some to play, some just to hang out, converse with cronies and get some sun. Football superstar turned actor Jim Brown and buddy Bill Cosby have been going at it since midmorning, and Cos is pooped. Not Jim, however; his physical prowess and sheer stamina are incredible.

The tennis court is another recent addition to the property and something quite special. Set into the side of a hill, its green-topped surface is merely an extension of the lawn around it. A barbecue-bar and lounge area built of Palos Verdes stone is set up above the playing surface for better visibility. The final touch was eliminating most of the high fences that usually surround a tennis court, and then landscaping the open area that remained.

Tennis Illustrated featured the Mansion court in its October issue, calling it "a spectacular sight" and adding: "The workmanship involved in integrating the court into its palatial surroundings is comparable to that of a diamond cutter setting his stone."

"It is, quite simply, the best place to play tennis in Southern California," says Billy Eisenberg, a Mansion regular, who uses the court almost daily--and knows a great deal about games in general, being one of the best bridge and backgammon players in the world.

Hef and Barbi play two sets of singles and then relinquish the court. It is time for Hef's Playboy Productions meeting and Barbi, who is into a new career as a country-and-western singer, has a rehearsal with her musicians, known collectively as Grand Junction. On the way back to the house, they pause beside the carved-stone wishing well. Hef occasionally tells first-time visitors, "The well was the only thing here when we bought the property. I just dropped a penny in and wished for the rest."

Hef's sense of humor is sometimes as zany as early Groucho Marx: He and Barbi embrace and do a mock impression of the Prince and Snow White singing I'm Wishing from Disney's Snow White.

You and the rest of the gang from the tennis court take your time strolling back to the Mansion, for you have no meeting to go to on this lovely afternoon--you have nothing to do but relax and enjoy the wonders of this Disneyland for adults.

Jim Brown is in a reflective mood. "I love coming here," he says to nobody in particular, while others nod appreciatively. "I love showing it to people. Hef's hospitality is just beyond anything I'll ever be able to repay. That guy is a friend, brother."

The sky is still cloudless, the air around you is fragrant with soft perfumes; and you figure, finally, that maybe the loquacious Irish actor Peter O'Toole said it best after a stroll around the grounds with Hef, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward: "This is what God would have done if He'd had the money." Hef laughed and turned O'Toole into a pillar of salt.

• • •

Hef greets Sal Iannucci, Ed Rissien and several other Playboy Productions executives in the Great Hall, and they proceed to the Living Room to screen a rough cut of a new Playboy Movie of the Week produced for ABC-TV.

The Living Room is the warmest and most comfortable in the house--with dark-paneled walls, a large stone fireplace flanked by two immense leather couches and an assortment of other couches, chairs and tables in various seating and conversational groupings. It's a rich, dark room with Regency brass, doré bronze and Georgian copper, contrasting with the burnished mahogany, walnut and oak. Paintings by Dali and Miró hang on the walls; there is a grand piano at one end of the room and a large bay window, with leaded glass and drapes of dark-wine velvet, at the other--looking out onto the lush greenery of the garden beyond.

The drapes are being drawn over the windows as the executives enter; the couches are already rearranged to convert the room into a small theater. There is a projection booth with the latest 16mm and 35mm equipment behind the wall on which the Miró hangs; a large screen slowly descends from its hiding place in the ornately carved ceiling. The screening begins--Hef taking notes on a lined yellow legal pad affixed to a lighted clipboard in his lap. He always sits in the same place on the front couch at these screenings, and for the movies that are a regular part of the entertainment at Playboy Mansion West, because he has remote controls for both focus and sound installed there, as well as a call button for service from his staff.

This film is titled The Great Niagara and stars Richard Boone as the father of a Depression-era family with a driving compulsion to beat the falls. Hef is very pleased with what he sees, and there is some discussion after the screening of possible theatrical release in Europe.

Playboy expanded into motion pictures, television and records because of Hefner's conviction that continuing technological advances were bringing publishing and other forms of mass communication and entertainment closer together, and that Playboy Enterprises should be developing its own areas of expertise in each medium. After a false start (Playboy's first motion picture was Roman Polanski's Macbeth, which was chosen Best Picture of the Year by the National Film Review Board but was commercially unsuccessful; Playboy's experiment in pop anthropology. The Naked Ape--part live action, part animation, with a musical score by Jimmy Webb--pleased neither critics nor public, Hefner hired Iannucci, a former top executive at CBS Television Network and president of Capitol Records, to reorganize the entire entertainment division. Sal picked Rissien to take over Playboy Productions and, in little more than a year, Ed and a new team of talented staff members have produced four films for ABC-TV, two pilots for potential series on NBC and CBS, two television specials and a major motion picture, The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder, a seriocomic love story about a Vietnam vet attempting to cope with contemporary society, directed by Arthur (Love Story) Hiller and starring Timothy (The Last Picture Show, Paper Chase) Bottoms, Vrooder has just had a sneak preview in Boulder, Colorado, and Sal has a favorable review from The Colorado Daily, which he gives to Hef. It concludes:

"This is the first film for Playboy Productions since the company reshuffled its film-making arm. If the company continues to produce quality films of this type, there might be a new major film company arising very soon.

"The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder will appeal to any kind of audience From a cinematic point of view, it combines all of the essential parts of a good flick--original screenplay, good acting and a strong use of visuals."

There is good news regarding Playboy Records, too. Early in the year, Iannucci hired Tom Takayoshi to run the division, and more than half the records released on the Bunny label since then have made the charts. In midsummer, a new Playboy recording artist, Mickey Gilley, went to the top of the Billboard and Cash Box country-and-western charts with his first single, Room Full of Roses, and his second, I Overlooked an Orchid, has done the same. Now Gilley's first album is nearing the number-one spot, and Tom arrives with the news that Record World has picked Gilley as the top new male performer of the year in the country-and-western field.

"If this keeps up, we may have to change the name of the magazine to Plowboy," says Hef.

He is, especially pleased by this good news because of a recent article in Newsweek, titled "Trouble in Bunny Land," which covered the initial problems of Playboy Productions and ignored the successes of the past year. (In similar fashion, Newsweek and various other New York publications have failed to accurately report the progress made in Playboy Club and Resort-Hotel operations, which are producing a profit despite the pressures of inflation and recession on the economy.)

"The Newsweek piece was a hatchet job," says Iannucci. "The editors in New York killed an earlier story on Playboy's Twentieth Anniversary, because one of their correspondents wrote something that was too complimentary. I'm afraid that some of the New York media have an anti-Playboy bias. I guess they just don't dig the fact that the most successful publishing venture of the past 20 years was created by a kid from Chicago."

Takayoshi wants Hef's approval on the jacket for Barbi's album, and he has another surprise--the reviews of her first single. "I've got to show these to Barbi," Hef says.

Barbi is rehearsing with Grand Junction in the living room of the Guest House. Hidden among some trees between the Greenhouse and the tennis court, this two-bedroom cottage--with stone exterior and slate roof similar to those of the other buildings on the property--is currently being redecorated, under Barbi's watchful eye, in Early American with such rustic touches as a red-brick fireplace, barn-wood walls, an ancient gramophone on the table and a spinning wheel in the corner.

Barbi is standing in the middle of the room, her four musicians seated around her, with her manager, Tommy Amato, arranger-conductor Vic Caesar and Shel Silverstein variously situated around the room. In her act, Barbi is doing several of Shel's songs, ranging from the poignant ballad I Can't Touch the Sun (with which she particularly identifies, because she found it when she and Hef were having some romantic problems a year ago) to a raucous bit of raunch called If You Can't Do It, That's All Right ("If you can't do it two or three times a night. . . . I'll find me somebody who can."). Here, as onstage, she can be a charming and vivacious child or a sensuous woman, as the song requires. She has just finished a rambunctious rendition of Queen of the Silver Dollar, another of Shel's songs, when Hef bursts in with copies of her Billboard, Cash Box and Record World reviews.

Barbi's singing career began a little over a year ago with a weekend appearance at L.A.'s Palomino Club, the West Coast mecca for country-and-western performers. Hef, convinced that she had more potential as an actress in films and TV, initially tried to discourage her singing aspirations. "Hef's reservations just made me more determined," she admits. "I wanted to prove to him that I could do it." And she has. After the Palomino, she went to the Hacienda in Las Vegas for five weeks, and then on to a series of successful appearances in night clubs across the country. Barbi has been a regular on Hee Haw, the syndicated country-music-and-comedy TV show, for four years (starting immediately after a similar stint on Playboy After Dark) but was limited to cornfield comedy bits and beautifying the background behind Roy Clark's and Buck Owens' songs until the director learned he had a new singing star on his show. Appearances on Midnight Special and the Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas shows helped, and in the late summer, she cut her first record, Welcome Stranger--for Playboy Records, of course. ("I know somebody," says Barbi.)

The reviews are all raves. Billboard picks the record as a "Top Recommended" of the week. Cash Box reports. "In the past few months there has been a lot of excitement generated by the announcement of this single being recorded. Barbi, one of the Hee Haw crew, proves that the talk was not just another industry 'hype.' This should be the record that will start her on a long and rewarding career." And Record Would says, "This young gal sings as pretty as she looks and this soft, sure ballad will snuggle in your mind and wake up on the charts. Welcome Barbi!" Everyone is very excited and Barbi starts to cry.

Back in the Mansion, the Playboy Productions meeting moves into the Library, immediately adjacent to the Living Room. The paneling is lighter here and the fire-place smaller; it has a friendly old-leather-and-port atmosphere about it. There is a soft brown-and-white-striped sofa facing into the room, with a long, low coffee table standing in front of it and four heavy leather chairs of more contemporary design set around the table. Hef gets a fresh bottle of Pepsi from the small bar refrigerator in the corner and settles down on the couch; Sal and Ed sit facing him in the leather chairs. Peering over Hef's shoulder, from a table in the window bay behind the couch, is a striking bare-breasted bust of Barbi by sculptor Frank Gallo. And hanging over the doorway of the room is a wry little needlepoint made by Barbi for Hef, which reads: Be it Ever so Humble, There is no Place Like Home. A curiously homey epigram when you recall that the Chicago Mansion has a brass plaque on the door announcing, in Latin yet: Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare ("If you don't swing, don't ring").

Hefner, Iannucci and Rissien are joined by actor-author Jason Miller, star of The Exorcist and author of the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play, That Championship Season, which will be Playboy Productions' next motion-picture project. Miller has completed the screenplay and the discussion this afternoon is on the casting of the film--whether a major star is required or whether it's better to go with most of the original Broadway cast.

Their meeting over, Miller departs, but the three Playboy executives have a few other matters to discuss. The first televised Bunny Beauty Pageant was highly successful in its initial syndicated release this summer: "In New York," Sal states, "the show was aired on an independent station in prime time and got 33 percent of the audience--beating all three of the network stations in the ratings; in Chicago, the Playboy show was carried by the CBS channel and had 41 percent of the viewers. The Bunnies got top ratings in almost every market that they played." As a result, the annual Bunny Beauty Pageant is assured of national TV exposure in the future and Sal has already been approached by a sponsor who is offering $200,000 for the show next year.

Everything is set, says Sal, for the taping of Playboy's Twentieth Anniversary Party, scheduled to run as a late-night Wide World Special on ABC-TV: "The network representatives originally wanted a Hefner roast, but when we pointed out that you had already done a roast on the Dean Martin Show last season, they agreed to the party concept."

"It will be a much better show this way," Hef says.

"Absolutely," Sal agrees. "It will be shot here at Playboy Mansion West--with a number of name performers and an impressive list of celebrity guests. We'll give them a real gala."

"I'd like to have Shelly Kasten coordinate the show, the same way he did on the Bunny Beauty Pageant," Hef says.

"Fine."

"Incidentally, are you familiar with the work of a film editor named Chuck Braverman?" Hef asks. "He's very creative and very far out. He did some work for the Smothers Brothers show several years ago that I liked very much, and I have a film he did on the Beatles that I want you to see--it is really something special. I'd like to get him to do a short segment on this show similar to what he did on the Beatles--a 20-year history of Playboy in five minutes, something like that."

"Sounds interesting," remarks Ed. "Did he do a three-minute history of the United States for the Smothers Brothers?"

"That's the guy," Hef says. "I'll set up a screening for you on the Beatles film for tomorrow, if that's OK."

"OK."

• • •

Outside, the pool-and-tennis crowd dwindles as the afternoon sun begins to disappear beneath the horizon. The Bath House, a stone building covered with vegetation and set just a short distance from the pool and the Grotto, is alive with friends of both sexes, showering, shampooing, shaving, fixing make-up and getting dressed, with little concern about nudity--one aspect of the pleasantly permissive sexuality that pervades this special place.

The interior of the Bath House is also of stone, with an abundance of plants and vines providing an indoor-outdoor character, completed by a glass skylight that allows the sun (or stars) to shine in. There are four separate dressing rooms--with adjoining showers. The showers, too, are built into the rock, with a glass wall that looks out onto brightly colored flowers and greenery, creating the illusion that you're bathing in a natural grotto. A complete array of toilet articles is at your beck beside the lavatory and, while you towel off in front of a mirror, a drier in the ceiling blows warm air onto your head and shoulders. Shelves of multi-colored bath towels, bathing suits (oh, all right, if you must) and terrycloth robes stand nearby. All this, plus an oversized sauna and a ceiling-mounted sun lamp with newly developed rare-earth ultraviolet bulbs that provide an over-all tan with a minimum of heat and burning--and there is ample evidence, you may note, that many of these sun worshipers favor the over-all approach in tanning. At the far end of the Bath House is a thickly carpeted lounging area, filled with soft, oversized cushions, where guests like to relax at this time of day--under the branches of a friendly tree that grows there, inside the building.

You stroll back to the house, where the late-afternoon games are beginning. In the Library, two housemen are removing the top of the big oak coffee table--revealing a pair of inset felt-and-leather backgammon boards; and what was, a few minutes ago, the center of a business meeting is now transformed into the focal point of competitive fun and games. The main backgammon game of the Mansion is usually played on this table several nights a week, with other players using portable boards around the room and elsewhere in the house. The quality of play in the major game is extremely high, which is to be expected, since some of the best backgammon players in the world regularly compete here.

In London, Monte Carlo or Aruba--wherever the major international tournament of the moment is happening--you'll hear stories of the play at Mansion West: of the night Hef gammoned longtime world champ Tim Holland five times in a row in a six-man chouette: of the time last summer when top London-based player Lewis Deyong, winner of two European tournaments this year, came to discuss the backgammon book he is writing for Playboy Press and had the worst losing streak of his life: of the evening bridge buff Omar Sharif joined the Library chouette (a game involving three or more players) and wound up the only loser. Many other top bridge players are into backgammon--Billy Eisenberg, a Mansion regular and one of the most formidable backgammon opponents on the West Coast, won the world bridge championship two years in a row and, as a member of the current U. S. team, will compete for the international title again this month in Bermuda.

Hef's enthusiasm for the game prompted him and several backgammon buddies nearly two years ago to open a private nonprofit club called Pips (after the triangular markings on the board) devoted to good food and drink, dancing and backgammon. An immediate success, it quickly became the most "in" place in town. Barbi is a backgammon buff, too, and she has won prizes in several local tournaments: in 1973, she sponsored her own tournament for the female members of Pips and, deciding to enter herself at the last minute, won first prize.

Whenever Hef's daughter, Christie, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brandeis, is in town, she organizes a Mansion tournament. These are great fun, permitting lesser players to compete with the pros--sometimes with surprising results.

Some evenings the backgammon action is interrupted by a similarly competitive game of Monopoly. As might be expected, even that old Parker Brothers classic is played in a rather grand manner at the Mansion. A special board has been created--one and a half times the size of the Parker original--set into a handsome wood table. The bank and a dice field have been set into the center of the board and individual slots set into the sides for each player's money and property. The pieces are miniature three-inch-tall hand-painted replicas of the players themselves (and are minor classics of pop art) done by a Chicago sculptor from photographs of Hefner and his friends. This unique Monopoly set was completed last Christmas, when several members of the game-playing contingent of the Mansion gang gave Hef a bundle of newly printed Monopoly money with his own image engraved on the face of the bills in the manner of Washington or Lincoln and exterior views of the Chicago and L.A. Mansions on the back. Hef's advice for the neophyte player: "The orange monopoly is your best bet if you've only modest means, but the green monopoly is superior if you're loaded."

Hef's love of games is responsible for one of the most unusual and popular parts of Playboy Mansion West--a stone cottage hidden among the trees that looks as though it belonged to the gamekeeper of Lady Chatterley's Lover. And a keeper of games it is, for this is the Game House--an electronic playland of pinball, pool, racing cars and rocket launchers. The interior provides rustic comfort, with beamed ceiling, stone fireplace and leather couch and chairs. There are games against every wall, a pool table in the center and, to one side, a handsome nickelodeon--a prize that Barbi found at an auction and had restored (it plays Second Hand Rose and a half-dozen other vintage melodies in true honky-tonk style). There are two minibedrooms adjoining--one done entirely in red, the other in blue, with mirrored walls and ceilings, for game players of another sort, again reminding you of Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper.

New games are constantly being added and older ones replaced. The Chicago Mansion even has a bowling alley--a recently installed gift from Brunswick--with automatic pin setter and maple alley.

The most popular electronic game at the moment is Clean Sweep, but Hef soon mastered it--regularly registering 19.600, the top score possible with a "clean sweep" on the standard machine; at his request, the manufacturer rewired the circuitry to make the game more of a challenge, with an indefinite repeating of the dot pattern the player is required to clear from the screen, and Hef's high score is currently over 200.000.

The urge to compete is contagious, and new games invariably produce fierce rivalries among the most serious of the Mansion's game players--a situation that is enhanced by a posting of the 20 highest scores for each game on a walnut plaque hung on the wall beside the machine. Soon after the arrival of Speedway, a racing game, comedian Don Adams spent an entire night and much of the following day trying to beat Hef's top score. The arrival of Clean Sweep produced a whole series of such all-night sessions.

If you get restless in the middle of the night and decide to take a stroll out to the Game House, you may find a pair of Jet Bunnies there earnestly trying to better their scores on Fireball or some other favorite game.

In "Hefner: Paradise Reconsidered," published in a recent issue of New Times, Sam Merrill writes:

"Many commentators have found a grim portentousness in Hefner's compulsive games playing. And 48-hour Monopoly marathons are certainly not what Dr. Joyce Brothers would call 'the hallmark of the well-adjusted personality.' But I didn't see in Hefner's play the Vince Lombardi syndrome some writers have paralleled to his business success. Instead, that all-exclusive intensity with which Hefner plays seems to be an end in itself. He is playing just a little too hard to be serious, and part of the joke seems to be for passers-by to say. 'Oh, wow! Why does Hefner take his games so seriously?' In fact, a floating in-joke ambience pervades all social movement at the Mansion."

Computerized games are just one example of Hefner's fascination with electronic gadgetry, and both Mansions are filled with such gear--with the full-time staff of engineers necessary to keep everything working properly. A Seeburg hi-fi installation, with speakers throughout the house and grounds, permits guests to choose from any of 100 albums simply by dialing the appropriate number on one of the remote-control devices strategically situated about the property.

One of the more interesting musical features of the house--a fully equipped Aeolian pipe organ hidden behind louvered doors in the Living Room, with a full set of pipes, bells, chimes and such in a room behind it--was installed by the original owner. Hef discovered a remote-control console for the instrument in the basement and had it repaired and attached, so that the organ can now be played either manually or from rolls, like the nickelodeon in the Game House.

Both Mansions have electronically controlled secret panels. The pressing of a carved detail in the wall of the hallway between the Living Room and the Library opens a hidden door, revealing stairs that lead down to a wine cellar. The original owner of the house had this room installed as a secret place for storing and imbibing alcoholic beverages during Prohibition.

As in Chicago, the real electronic focal point of the house is in the Master Quarters. There is no rotating, vibrating circular bed, but plans for this area are, if anything, even more remarkable than in the original Mansion, and construction--purposely delayed until the rest of the renovation was completed--is now nearly finished.

The Master Bedroom is dominated by a massive, ornately carved four-poster bed that is virtually a room within a room: At the push of a button, electrically operated draperies of purple velvet enclose the bed, while a bank of louvered mirrors glides silently along the sides to form a kind of crystal canopy with the shinning mirror above.

Beside the headboard is a panel of controls that puts the bedroom's entire array of electronic marvels no farther away than one's finger tips. From here, the draperies and mirrors are dispatched, the room's lights can be controlled, temperature and humidity can be regulated, and an elaborate audio-visual entertainment system can be operated--all without so much as throwing back the sheets. At the flick of a switch, a large console at the foot of the bed opens to reveal a pair of six-foot-wide screens for twin Advent VideoBeam projection units that provide a television picture--of either regular TV broadcasts off the air or something selected from the extensive video-tape library--the size of a movie screen. Three 25-inch TV monitors are mounted above the Advent screens, and the whole eye-boggling show can be turned on at the same time--with each screen carrying a different picture--if anyone should care for such an unusual psychedelic trip. there are also a pair of low-light video-tape cameras handy--in case a person wishes to make his own show. But the button de résistance may well be the one that lowers the entire headboard out of sight for nights when you'd rather just look out at the moon and stars in the black-velvet L.A. sky.

The rest of the Master Bedroom is baronial in style. A massive marble fire-place--big enough to roast approximately two million marshmallows simultaneously--faces a curved Chesterfield couch and matching leather chairs. The opposite wall is a panoply of bookcases, cabinets and sculpture alcoves--which hold a number of Gallo's exquisite miniature erotic statues. Hidden in this Mondriaan maze of complex cabinetry is a secret door that leads out to a private sun deck overlooking the yard--greenery, pools, waterfalls and all. There is an ornately carved spiral staircase that curves gracefully upward to the floor above, which contains Hef's working quarters, as well as the electronic equipment, Sony and Ampex video-tape machines and similar marvels of modern technology that are connected to Hef's bed and make it a contemporary magic carpet. A spacious dressing area adjoins the Bedroom, as well as the Master Bathroom--decorated in high-camp Hollywood moderne of the Twenties: black-marble floor, shower, toilet, bidet and raised bathtub (with built-in whirlpool jets, of course), contrasting with Chinese cabinetry and hand-painted Oriental landscapes on the walls.

The rest of the Mansion's second floor is devoted to guest bedrooms similar to the one in which you awakened this morning, plus a complex of offices in the far wing for Hef's executive assistants and overworked secretaries.

• • •

It is early evening now and, while the backgammon game goes on in the Library, a buffet dinner is being served in the quiet elegance of the walnut-paneled Regency Dinning Room. Separated from the Great Hall by thick blue draperies, the room is carpeted--also in deep-blue hues--with a custom-woven rug of heraldic design: great rampant lions in each corner, duplicating those carved into chair arms and legs, as well as winged Leos supporting the marble-topped buffet table. Brass wall sconces highlight the Italian burled-veneer table, contrasting with Hefner's choice of contemporary art--Dali's Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity at the entranceway, a DeKooning Woman above the fireplace and a Pollock masterpiece above the buffet.

Hefner dislikes formal dinner parties, and this typical evening buffet is informal, indeed. For the next hour or two, guests will wander in and partake of the buffet at their leisure. The host is wearing blue pajamas, matching the blue velvet of the chairs and draperies of the room, and though he seldom sits down to dinner with his guests--preferring a later, more private meal with Barbi in the Master Quarters--he moves from one to another, engaging them in casual conversation. Lee Wolfberg is swapping friendly insults with Delores Wells, a Playmate in 1960, former Bunny and Bunny Mother, now the private secretary to Linda Lovelace; Delores is one lady who has no difficulty in handling Lee's vitriolic repartee--giving as well as she gets. Patrick Curtis (Raquel Welch's ex) and Jimmy Boyd (who first became famous as a freckle-faced lad singing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus), both Mansion regulars, are similarly occupied in intense conversation with the same well-endowed blonde beauty.

One of the nice things about the Mansion is that you never know in advance who may be dropping in for a drink, dinner or just to hang out for a bit--though presumably Hef must know, since it is impossible to get by the gate without an invitation. On this particular evening, Kitty Bruce, Lenny's daughter, arrives with boyfriend Freddy Prinze, the hot young comic star of Chico and the Man, and Kitty is obviously nervous about introducing him to Hef, whom she considers an avuncular figure, because of his close friendship with her father. On another evening, Sally Marr--Lenny's mother--brought Dustin Hoffman to the house to talk about the comedian with Hef, soon after Hoffman had agreed to portray him on the screen. (Hoffman expressed concern about his ability to play the part; Hef's reaction: "You're the perfect choice.")

Peter Lawford brought Liz Taylor one night--and she was beautiful but bombed. Raquel Welch came cool and sober (but not with Patrick)--and she left the same way.

You're finishing your dessert when you realize that the young lady seated on your left at the dinner table is Linda Blair, the possessed child in The Exorcist--not exactly Liz or Raquel, to be sure, but fascinating all the same. She's a friend of Kitty's, you learn, and came with her and Prinze.

Linda Lovelace arrives and gives Hef a warm embrace and a campaign button that reads: When You Say "Linda Love-Lace for President" You've Said a Mouthful.

Linda is just one of the prominent political figures who have frequented the Playboy Mansion and Playboy Mansion West. Chuck Percy challenged Hef to a game of ping-pong in the Chicago Mansion not long ago and Julian Bond called a few nights ago to arrange a late-evening confab with the master of Mansion West regarding matters as yet undisclosed. When asked about the curious attraction of the Mansion, Jack Nicholson flashed a lazy smile and said, "Where else can you share a strawberry malt with a Senator--or talk politics with a Playmate?"

After dinner, most of the gang gather in the Living Room for a movie--a new release or a 16mm classic. Tonight includes a special treat: Writer-director-actor-comedian Chuck McCann, at Jackie Gayle's urging, has brought a print of his film The Come Back Trail--produced several years ago but never released, because the financing ended a bit before the film. McCann, who played a deaf-mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, opposite Alan Arkin, but is probably better remembered as the chubby-faced fellow who popped through his neighbor's bathroom medicine chest with a "Hi, guy!" in those TV commercials a few years ago, is a comic genius as yet undiscovered by the general public. Come Back Trail, though crude in its direction and editing, contains scenes of such inspired insanity that the audience is literally limp from laughter when it is over.

After the movie, the viewers go off in different directions--some back to the Dining Room for coffee and conversation, others to the pool for an evening swim, still others to the Game House and the Library to further hone their competitive skills.

Through the leaded windows of the Great Hall, you see a full moon shining on the back-yard lawn, turning it into a sheet of silver-green. With all the people indoors, the big birds--flamingos and cranes--have come down off the knoll and are cavorting across the grass. It's a great time to take a leisurely stroll through the forest--alone or with a chosen companion.

This woodland wonderland is composed of coastal redwoods and Atlas cedars, with a thick carpet of ferns and flowering plants covering the ground. Several flagstone paths lead down the hill through the trees to glades where no sound intrudes, even though the house above is filled with guests at play. Toward the bottom of the hill, you come upon a massive tree trunk that has been carved into a canopied love seat, just big enough for two. One of the best-kept secrets on the grounds, this quiet little place.

Wandering through these woods, you realize that this is one of the few places where you can still feel such a sense of seclusion and security in a major American city at night. There is little chance of being mugged at the Mansion; if anyone jumps out of the bushes while you're taking this stroll, it will probably be a playful Playmate. Though unobtrusive and usually unnoticed, Mansion West has an elaborate security system--well manned and with sophisticated closed-circuit TV monitoring, sensor and alarm devices that protect the property and the people on it. That may be one of the considerations that prompted a wag to call Mansion West "the swinger's answer to Camp David."

As you emerge from the forest and approach the house, you catch sight of several shadows moving across the grass in the moonlight. It is "Jacuzzi Joe" De Carlo and a coterie of companions on their way to the Grotto to frolic in the whirlpool waters, and he motions you to join them. You can hardly refuse, since this is the most popular and romantic place on the property--and De Carlo's own devotion to the invigorating waters is what has earned him the nickname Jacuzzi Joe.

The rocky hillock that juts out into the center of the swimming pool is actually a cave. Joe leads the way across the stone patio and through a wooden door, and then you find yourself standing in a magnificent cavern composed of rocks of every conceivable size and shape--a sea cave that might have been sculpted by a pounding surf but wasn't.

There are two other ways to enter: through a waterfall at the shallow end of the pool or by finding the secret opening at the deep end and swimming underwater into the cave. The placid pool water is separated from the swirling, bubbling water of the spa by a series of stone steps: The pool is kept at a comfortable 86 degrees; the Jacuzzi baths are an invigorating 100. There is a brass control panel set into the rock just inside the doorway that regulates the temperatures of both air and water--and permits you to adjust them to personal taste. The lights in the cave are on dimmers that are also controlled by buttons on this panel: On this night, they are only a romantic glow, with most of the illumination supplied by large, oddly shaped candles set on various ledges around the cave.

There are no rules regarding bathing suits in the Jacuzzi baths, but most bathers naturally seem to prefer the spa au naturel--and so it is tonight, the revelers slipping out of robes and clothing in the shadows and then disappearing into the swirling waters. You do the same and find the initial sensation of immersing yourself in the hot, churning Jacuzzi is a rush--followed by a powerful feeling of well-being, and then a blissful, relaxed euphoria.

You find that there are actually four separate bath areas from which to choose: a vertical spa, where you can stand in water up to your shoulders while Jacuzzi jets pummel your body from top to bottom: a thronelike chair, where an individual--or couple--can sit in the swirling waters; the main spa--waist high--with a Jacuzzi-jet bench along one side; and a shallow oval-shaped section in the center, where you can lie back--floating almost weightlessly in the turbulence.

There are cushioned ledges around the sides of the cave where bathers can recline after taking the waters. You relax there for a while, watching the naked bodies in the flickering candlelight and listening to the soft music that fills the Grotto from speakers hidden inside artificial rocks that are indistinguishable from the real ones.

The inspiration for the Jacuzzi Grotto was the Roman Bath that was built in Hef's quarters in the Chicago Mansion some time ago and that he shared--on one legendary night--with Mick Jagger, the rest of the Stones and assorted female friends.

In both beauty and function, Hef's friends regard the Jacuzzi cave as one of his best creations, and sometimes when you're there alone with only an amorously inclined friend, it can be a very private experience; at other times, when it's filled to overflowing with friends, some amorously inclined, others simply there to partake of the invigorating waters, it's glorious group fun. But always it is a place of love, peace and tranquillity--remarkably removed from the cares and concerns of the world outside.

• • •

The arrival of Hefner on the West Coast and the creation of Playboy Mansion West has been, from the beginning, the longest ongoing premiere in Hollywood's history. Writer Frank Brady, in his unauthorized biography, Hefner, comments that "Hefner quickly began to dominate the Hollywood social scene with his flair for flamboyant entertaining. . . . His new house now epitomizes, more than anyone else's, the great salons of heyday Hollywood." Of course, Hef's fascination with the film world is nothing new. He's been a devoted movie buff since childhood, and the fantasy world of the silver screen helped shape his adolescent dreams and aspirations. He can still describe how he felt when he saw Citizen Kane or Casablanca for the first time--or the fifth--and he can quote whole passages from his all-time favorite Bogart classics. (One of his favorite terms of endearment for Barbi is, "Here's looking at you, kid.") It's clearly no accident that Hollywood was chosen as the site of the second Playboy Mansion. And it's no surprise that so many of Hollywood's celebrities respond to Hef's attention and reciprocate his feelings. Which is why his Sunday gatherings have now become one of Hollywood's feature attractions.

On a typical Sunday, guests arrive at the Mansion in a long procession of elegant Rolls, Mercedes and Maseratis--that is, until actor Jimmy Caan, who rides wild broncos in rodeos during off hours, pulls up in a Chevrolet truck with a bumper sticker that reads: Try a Cowboy--They Stay On Longer. Topping him for California funky chic is a group of girls who show up in a battered dune buggy. Then Hef's backgammon buddy Burt Sugarman, producer of Midnight Special, arrives in his yellow Rolls-Royce (the yellow Rolls-Royce from the film of that name). It's one of the very few times that Sugarman has taken this $150,000 classic for an outing, and he's driven it over this afternoon just to amuse Hefner. Guests head off almost immediately to their favorite pursuits. Robert Culp makes for the tennis court and in a matter of minutes is in reruns with his old I Spy buddy, Bill Cosby. Marilyn Cole, 1973 Playmate of the Year, rises from the chaise longue where she's been sunning and stands naked for an exquisite moment--looking for all the world like a photo from her own memorable pictorial feature. And on the lawn, Hef and Barbi are organizing a volleyball game--with a special lookout posted for Lambert the llama, who may appear at any time to make his usual sporting lunge for Hef's elbow.

Toward the end of the afternoon, players, swimmers and sun worshipers start moving in the direction of the Bath House for a quick shower and change before joining the late arrivals on the flagstone patio, where the Sunday buffet tables are set up. Despite Hef's own preference for dishes such as plain old fried chicken, his guests are offered all kinds of exotic fare: lobster, crab meat, shish kabob and platters filled with avocados and artichoke hearts.

The movies on Sundays are always first-run features personally selected by the host. Tonight, he's showing the MGM extravaganza That's Entertainment!, and shortly after it begins, the film's producer-director, Jack Haley, Jr., and his new wife, Liza Minnelli, sneak in to take seats at the back of the Living Room, where they can observe the audience's reactions unnoticed.

The crowd loves Haley's history of MGM musicals, and afterward the conversations among the people milling about the Great Hall are filled with snatches of old songs and reminiscences of Hollywood's golden days. The Living Room and Mediterranean Room overflow with those wanting coffee and dessert, the Game House regulars, such as screen-writer Buck (The Graduate, Catch-22) Henry, head out the front door on their way to some electronic fun and games, while Jacuzzi Joe, in his familiar terrycloth bathrobe, heads out the French doors into the back yard and, well, there's not much question where he's headed and what sort of fun and games he's got in mind.

Hef hosts a variety of public-interest and promotional gatherings at Playboy Mansion West, from the fund-raisers--on behalf of the A.C.L.U. and NORML, the political campaign of Mayor Tom Bradley and the annual Tennis and Crumpets Tournament to benefit the John Tracy Clinic for deaf-mute children--to the Playmate of the Year party and the festivities that follow the Bunny of the Year Pageant.

Occasionally the perpetual host becomes an unexpected guest of honor--as with the surprise party held on Hef's most recent birthday. The regular gang had been alerted, but Hef--blissfully unaware of the planned festivities--was engrossed in a backgammon game in the Library. Shortly after midnight. Lee Wolfberg interrupted the game to say that Elizabeth Taylor had returned with Peter Lawford and she wanted to see Hef in the Dining Room. An unsuspecting Hefner thus strolled into a room filled with merry friends and the biggest, most obscenely decorated birthday cake in memory--from the center of which emerged a delectably bare-breasted Christine Maddox, Playboy's December 1973 Playmate of the Month. On a previous birthday in the Chicago Mansion. Hef had been treated to an even bigger surprise when--in the middle of viewing early rushes of Roman Polanski's Macbeth--British actor Jon Finch, in the title role, suddenly stopped in the middle of a scene in a witches' coven, surrounded by 30 naked hags, turned to the camera with a personal greeting and, baton in hand, led the grossly unattractive, unattired ladies in appropriate song: "Happy birthday, dear Hef, / Happy birthday to you."

Such surprises aren't limited to Hef's birthdays. On the first Sunday in October, Hef was hosting a party of a different sort at the Mansion: an all-afternoon-and-evening gala of celebrities and other friends celebrating Playboy's 20th Anniversary that would be telecast as a late-night special on ABC later that month. At poolside, they had just taped a bit of jazz history with a Playboy Jazz All-Star sextet--Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Stan Getz on sax, Kai Winding on trombone, Bill Evans on piano, Ray Brown on bass and Buddy Rich on drums--when Becky came running across the lawn: "Hef, Muhammad Ali's on the phone from Zaire."

Hef had met Ali only once--in a crowd--several years before, so you had to figure this was some kind of put-on. But it wasn't. "I just wanted to call and congratulate you on your 20th Anniversary," Ali said in a voice too familiar to leave any doubt about who was speaking. "Jim Brown tells me you're having trouble getting the fight for the house. I just want you to know you've got it. Be sure you're watching, 'cause I'm gonna say hello to you and all your friends on world-wide television when I whup that Foreman." (True to his word, Ali did both.)

Hef has made a practice of piping in major fights and other sporting events on closed-circuit TV--projecting them on the big screen--in both his Chicago and his L.A. Mansions for many years, but he had been having some difficulty in arranging for the big one from Africa. (Ali's call would take care of that.) Fight nights at Playboy Mansion West are the most star-studded events of all (as well as the only nights when the men outnumber the women). On a typical evening of televised fisticuffs, the guest book would bring a bundle at any autograph auction--with the signatures of such celebrated boxing buffs as Clint Eastwood, Groucho Marx, Mick Jagger, Joe Namath, Sugar Ray Robinson, Tom Jones, Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal and such distaff fight fans as Ursula Andress and Sally Kellerman. At one recent closed-circuit match at the Mansion, Tommy Smothers surveyed the Great Hall and remarked: "If somebody set off a bomb in here tonight, they'd have to start show business all over again."

But for the Mansion family, the New Year's Eve pajama party is the ne plus ultra of any year, no matter what other ultras have come and gone. Imagine, if you will, the most beautiful women in Hollywood all dressed for bed in the most attention-getting fashion they can imagine, and you start to get the picture. The men wear various forms of sleeping attire, from monogrammed pajamas and robes to red-flannel underwear; some couples share a single pair of pajamas, and those who sleep in the buff can come that way if they wish--though no responsibility is taken for possible busts en route to and from the affair. For Hef, of course, pajamas are customary attire around the house--a comfortable garb for this relaxed and unpretentious host; and guests frequently lounge about the Mansion in bathrobes and other casual clothes on ordinary afternoons and evenings. Dressing up is something Hef does only on those special occasions when he and Barbi go out for an evening. On one such night last spring--the Hollywood premiere of The Great Gatsby--they chose attire perfectly suited to the event: he in white linen, she in gossamer white silk--both styled to the late Twenties--and were driven to the theater in a chauffeured 1928 Rolls provided by Burt Sugarman from his classic-car collection.

Hef's was a fitting costume, for writers have frequently compared him with F. Scott Fitzgerald's legendary hero. Norman Mailer wrote, some time ago, that "Staying as a house guest in [Hefner's] home, there had been servants ready all 24 hours . . . one had been able to get the equivalent of any drink made at any bar at any hour of the world, one could have chili at four A.M. or ice cream at ten, the servants had been perfect, the peace when empty of the house was profound, one never saw one's host except for once or twice in some odd hour of the night. He had a quality not unlike Jay Gatsby."

There are striking similarities between Hefner and Gatsby. Both were born of humble Midwest origins, both acquired wealth and power in ways not wholly acceptable to many of more established position: both mysterious, romantic loners, playing host to the famous and the beautiful in fabled mansions at parties that seem never to end. There was a dark and brooding side to Gatsby that Hefner obviously doesn't share, but the two are exactly alike in what Fitzgerald described as Gatsby's "extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness. . . ."

You might also say of Hefner, as the book's narrator, Nick Carraway, said of Gatsby: "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. . . . Those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive."