“All are great conversation pieces,” Nolan says. The sale, which begins on Friday, and has no reserves, includes silk pyjamas in every colour (guiding from $2,000, or about €1,770), velvet monogrammed Dunhill slippers and silk damask smoking jackets, one in crimson red ($5,000, or about €4,450). Playboy Enterprises sold the house for $100 million (€88.65 million) on the condition that Hefner could live out his days there.

It is one of the few homes in Los Angeles to have a zoo licence Hefner loved monkeys and flamingos in particular. Nolan and a staff of 25 completed the monumental task of cataloguing more than 8,000 items from the Gothic Tudor property, which stretches to almost 1,400sq m (15,000sq ft) and sits on 2ha (5ac), including a four-bedroom guest house and infamous swimming pool and grotto. The Athlone-born executive director at Julien’s Auctions has spent more than a year overseeing the decluttering of one of the California city’s premier properties. The Irish auctioneer Martin Nolan will this week host one of the biggest house-clearance sales in Los Angeles history when the contents of Hugh Hefner’s fabled Playboy mansion go under the hammer.

Playboy the mansion full