Daren Metropoulos—who already owns the house next door and whose family investment firm Metropoulos & Co. owns Twinkies-maker Hostess Brands – turned to a team of lawyers from Cox, Castle and Nicholson to make his $100 million purchase. The team was led by real estate partners Paul Titcher and Ira Waldman and associates Corin Korenaga and Scott Abrahamson; David Buchanan, general counsel for Metropoulos & Co., also worked on the deal in-house.

Playboy Enterprises —which originally listed the Playboy Mansion for $200 million earlier this year – was represented by Eisner Jaffe real estate partner Loretta Thompson and its general counsel Rachel Sagan, who was once an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

‘Unique and complex’

Mr Titcher told The American Lawyer that the deal ‘was this one of the most expensive home purchases in the history of LA’ and involved several ‘several highly unique and complex negotiated arrangements between the buyer and seller,’ one of which is that the 90-year-old Hugh Hefner will be allowed to live in the mansion for the rest of his life.