Extensive renovation work is underway at the iconic 29-room Playboy mansion in Los Angeles.
Aerial images of the huge project come as California enters its third week of a sweeping lockdown which has seen all non-essential work banned.
But the state has deemed construction work ‘essential’ meaning that workers are allowed to come and go from the site.
The landmark super-home in Holmby Hills belonged to Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner for 43 years.
After his death aged 91 in 2017, the mansion – which also boasts a wine cellar, grand hall and swimming pool – was taken over by billionaire Daren Metropoulos who bought it in 2016 for $100 million. Hefner was able to live in the house until he died.
Extensive renovation work is underway at the iconic 29-room Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Aerial images show Hugh Hefner’s grotto drained
Aerial images of the huge project come as California enters its third week of a sweeping lockdown which has seen all non-essential work banned
Three workers wearing protective face masks are seen outside the Playboy mansion. The landmark super-home in located in Holmby Hills
Hugh Hefner poses with some of his playmates as Playboy Magazine searched for the 50th Anniversary Playmate at the mansion in 2003
Billionaire Daren Metropoulos bought the property in 2016 for $100 million. Hefner was able to live in the house until he died
Aerial images appear to show work on the roof of the house (left), which is covered in plastic, while all the landscaping is gone
The famous grotto, which was the epicenter of Hefner’s legendary parties, appears to have been drained (right)
Who is billionaire Daren Metropoulos who owns the Playboy mansion?
Billionaire Daren Metropoulos is a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos and Co.
The company co-owns Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, an iconic American snack.
Metropoulos bought the Playboy mansion from Hugh Hefner in 2016 for $100 million.
Hefner was able to live in the house until he died.
After Hefner’s death, Daren said: ‘Hugh Hefner was a visionary in business, a giant in media and an iconic figure of pop culture whose legacy will leave a lasting impact.
Billionaire Daren Metropoulos is a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos and Co.
‘I was fortunate to know him as a neighbor and friend and I extend my deepest sympathies to his family.’
He previously said he intended to connect the two estates into a combined 7.3-acre compound after Hefner’s death, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Metropoulos said the mansion’s heritage ‘transcends its celebrity’ and that ‘to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege.’
When the Playboy mansion was sold, it was agreed that the main structure of the residence would be protected from any renovations.
Aerial images appear to show work on the roof of the house, which is covered in plastic, while all the landscaping gone.
The famous grotto, which was the epicenter of Hefner’s legendary parties, appears to have been drained.
California has been under strict lockdown to control the spread of coronavirus which killed 12,876 and infected more than 398,000 in the US alone. California is one the country’s worse-hit states with 15,865 cases and 374 deaths.
Newsom ordered all of the state’s 40 million residents to stay indoors and to maintain social distancing under a sweeping lockdown announced on March 19.
All non-essential businesses have been ordered to shut.
Manual labourers are able to keep working if they ‘provide services to maintain the safety, sanitation and essential operation to properties and other essential businesses’.
Newsom did not give an end date for the order but suggested that it would last for at least eight weeks.
The governor said the order was essential in light of modeling by experts that showed roughly 56 per cent of the state’s residents, or 25 million people, would contract the respiratory illness eight weeks from the start of the lockdown.
The Playboy Mansion was built in 1927 and bought by Hefner for $1 million in 1971.
It was emblematic of Hollywood’s excess, hosting parties with lingerie-only dress code for the female guests who cavorted in the caved grotto.
Elvis reportedly slept with eight Playmates at once at the home, while John Lennon once burned a Matisse original with a cigarette.
Donald Trump even filmed an episode of The Apprentice at the mansion where contestants got to meet Hefner and his girlfriends.
The mansion also has a sinister past after getting caught up in the Bill Cosby sex abuse allegations.
Judy Huth claimed Cosby assaulted her when she was 15 at Hugh Hefner’s home. Chloe Goins claimed she was assaulted by Crosby at the mansion, but criminal charges in this case were ruled out.
In another scandal in 2011, health officials confirmed that the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease was found in a whirlpool spa at the Playboy Mansion where more than 100 people fell ill.
The Los Angeles County Health Department presented its findings at an annual conference at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta.
The legionella bacteria also causes a milder illness called Pontiac fever.
Symptoms, which include fever and headache, are the same as those suffered by the Playboy Mansion partygoers.
Hefner’s widow, Crystal, 31, was the third of his wives, having married him in 2012.
He had previously been married to Mildred Williams from 1949-1959, with whom he had two children, and Kimberley Conrad – 1989’s 27-year-old Playmate of the Year – from 1989-2010.
Cooper, Hefner and Conrad’s elder son, said that he and brother Marston grew up with a framed photo of his mom’s nude centerfold in the home.
‘Yeah, that was weird,’ he admitted. ‘It was like the elephant in the room.’
Hefner also had a bevvy of ‘girlfriends’ who lived with him – usually several at a time – at his famed Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.
Despite declaring that he had slept with more than a thousand women, Hefner spent much of his life ‘looking for love in all the wrong places,’ as he tearfully told The New York Times in 1992.
Hefner married Crystal – and took up a life of monogamy – in 2012 after briefly calling off the engagement. ‘Maybe I should be single,’ he said a few months later.
‘But I do know that I need an ongoing romantic relationship. In other words, I am essentially a very romantic person, and all I really was looking for, quite frankly, with the notion of marriage was continuity and something to let the girl know that I really cared.’
The year before their marriage, he had mused: ‘I never really found my soulmate.’
The property’s roof can be seen covered in plastic while the house’s former front lawn is now a car park for multiple vehicles
The Playboy Mansion was built in 1927 and bought by Hefner for $1 million in 1971. Pictured: Renovation work is being carried out
The mansion was emblematic of Hollywood’s excess, hosting parties with lingerie-only dress code for the female guests who cavorted in the caved grotto
Elvis reportedly slept with eight Playmates at once at the home (pictured now), while John Lennon once burned a Matisse original with a cigarette
The 29-room Holmby Hills mansion belonged to Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner for 43 years before he died aged 91 in 2017. Pictured: Hugh Hefner and model Crystal Hefner in 2014
Donald Trump even filmed an episode of The Apprentice at the mansion where contestants got to meet Hefner and his girlfriends. Pictured: Hefner with Playboy bunnies Sheila Levell and Holly Madison
Hugh Hefner and his girlfriend Barbi Benton visited his Playboy Club in London in 1969. Hefner called himself a ‘very romantic person’