Shahira Barry, the 24-year-old Galway model who hit the headlines when she spent a summer in the Playboy Mansion, has revealed her sorrow at the news that Hollywood’s most famous home is on the market for an eye-watering $200m.
Its owner, legendary Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, has decided to sell up, though anyone who buys it will have to allow “The Hef” to live there for the rest of his life! Considering the fact that he turns 90 this year, you may think that won’t be for long, but The Hef has shown legendary staying power, and energy, for as man of his age, and he will no doubt continue to make full use of the 29-room mansion, which he purchased for just over $1m back in the 1970s.
Shahira took to Facebook this evening, recalling the first time she visited the Mansion in 2012 during a trip to LA. After returning home to Athenry that winter, she was shocked to receive a letter from The Hef, inviting her to come and stay the following summer, so she booked a 3-month trip in the summer of 2013, and spent nearly every weekend in the Mansion!
“I remember on the 4th July sitting on cushions on the grass watching the fireworks,” she wrote, “and feeling like crying because I was so happpy… I was a world and a half way from my home in Athenry, and for this small town girl it felt like a very magical place.”
Shahira says she will always have great memories of one of the world’s most famous houses, and joked that “If I had 200 million I would buy it in a heartbeat!!”
