Playboy Mansion on sale for $200 million, but Hef stays

You can live with Playboy patriarch Hugh Hefner for $200 million.

The Playboy Mansion, situated on 5 acres in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills, hit the market Monday for $200 million. With a catch. Hefner, the founder of Playboy Enterprises who has lived in the home for four decades, doesn't want to move out. His continued residence there even after the property sells is a condition of the sale, says company spokesman John Vlautin.

"If a buyer is found for the Playboy Mansion, Mr. Hefner will continue to live at the mansion for the rest of his life," he told USA TODAY.

Meanwhile, the sale is a strategic decision that will allow Playboy “to continue to reinvest in the transformation of our business,” CEO Scott Flanders said in a statement.

Hefner has lived in the house with a rotating cast of girlfriends over the years. He bought the home in 1971 for just over $1 million. Once notorious but now mostly tamed, the mansion has not been especially relevant in popular culture for years. Its naughty reputation for sybaritic luxury has faded, along with that of the Playboy magazine, as sex and nudity migrated to the Internet and to cable TV.

But its recent return to headlines may have been unwelcome: At least two of the nearly 60 accusers of Bill Cosby have claimed he drugged and/or sexually assaulted them at the mansion, where he once was a frequent guest, in episodes dating as far back as 1965 and as recently as 2008.

The property is 20,000 square feet, with 29 rooms and a four-bedroom guesthouse. The next owner will have reign over a home theater, gym, tennis court, swimming pool and even a zoo license.

Contributing: Maria Puente