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The Playboy Mansion Is About to Get Filled with Ding Dongs and Ho Hos

Daren Metropoulis—a 32-year-old whose father, C. Dean Metropoulis, is an American billionaire—just bought Hugh Hefner’s groovy pad for a price of “more than $100 million.”

Hostess may have just recalled 700,000 cases of Ding Dongs, Chocodiles, and Zingers—thanks to a finding that the treats may contain peanut residue, even though their labels don't mention it—but the heir to the Hostess fortune is living damn large.

At least he will be soon, once he moves into the Playboy Mansion. Daren Metropoulos—a 32-year-old whose father, C. Dean Metropoulos, is an American billionaire—just bought Hugh Hefner's groovy pad for a price of "more than $100 million." That's a discount off of the listing price of $200 million, but it's still quite a bit of bank.

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Metropoulos's dad is a private equity entrepreneur who has bought and sold interests in food companies to create a mega-fortune. At various times, Daren's dad's portfolio has included Ghirardelli chocolates, Perrier-Jouet, and the Pabst Brewing Company. The Metropouloses now own Hostess—that iconic creator of Twinkies, among much else—and life is evidently good if you're selling sugary treats to American children.

The young heir will now be able to join the Playboy property to a property next door—which he already owns. One problem: The deal for the mansion gives Hef the right to continue to live in it until his death.

The iconic Playboy mansion is an almost 22,000 square-foot, 1927-built, Gothic Tudor on 5.3 acres in Holmby Hills, a neighborhood in LA right next to Beverly Hills. The house includes a game room with arcade games and pinball machines, a wine cellar with a secret door, a screening room with a built-in pipe organ, three zoo and aviary buildings, a pet cemetery, and the famous grotto.

Playboy mansion Hostess heir image 2

The infamous Playboy Mansion grotto. Photo via Flickr user shoot on sight

Sounds great, but it's not always perky Bunnies and shriveled old-man prostates at the mansion. In 2011, an outbreak of Legionnaires disease in the grotto led to 123 people falling ill. What's more, a 2010 book called Bunny Tales, written by a former girlfriend of Hefner's, reported that the house had fallen into disrepair: "Everything in the Mansion felt old and stale, and Archie the house dog would regularly relieve himself on the hallway curtains, adding a powerful whiff of urine to the general scent of decay."

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So maybe the $100 million house isn't in the greatest shape, but Metropoulos doesn't seem to mind. "The heritage of this property transcends its celebrity, and to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege," he told the Wall Street Journal.

We can only presume that Ho Hos, Jumbo Honey Buns, and Suzy Qs will now replace the Bunnies (who, by the way, may very well have been known by the same names). Which gets us thinking: Why have we never before noticed the sexism inherent in American snack food names?

Here's to wishing Mr. Metropoulos well in his new home.