Fallen porn king Bob Guccione house for sale
Boomtown
Penthouse pooh bah Bob Guccion's
pleasure doom on the Hudson could be yours
By ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Ten-bedroom mansion anchors 63-acre estate.
Master bedroom in Guccione's 7,000-square-foot mansion in Dutchess
County.
Bob Guccione mugs with then fiance April Warren.
HYDE PARK, N.Y. - Fallen porn king Bob Guccione made his millions with
explicit pictures of naked women. But his estate is not a monument to
sex - it's a tribute to love.
Guccione's business troubles have forced him out of the Dutchess County
mansion where his beloved third wife is buried. The Daily News got an
exclusive look inside the 10-bedroom palace that porn bought, an opulent
but faded 63-acre hideaway with sweeping views of the Hudson River.
The walls are lined with mementos of Guccione's life with Kathy Keeton,
the witty blonde who stole his heart and shared his life for 32 years.
Her gowns still hang in her closets. Her lotions still sit on a dressing
table.
Much of the house seems frozen in time, as if Guccione lost interest in
their rural manse after her death from cancer in 1997. Windows are
broken, paint is peeling and weeds have reclaimed the gardens.
"Kathy actually bought the house hoping that Bob would retire up here,"
said caretaker Daniel Benassutti. "He used it more as a weekend house,
and she used it more during the week."
A few copies of Penthouse are tucked on shelves, but the only erotica on
display is a couple of tasteful nudes, including a signed print of a
young and topless Madonna, and a copy of "Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex."
Other than that, it looks like any millionaire's country home - lots of
antique furniture and family photos but no mirrored ceiling or
heart-shaped Jacuzzi.
Guccione, 73, preferred to hole up in his palatial townhouse on E. 67th
St. and seldom visited their estate, now on the block for $7 million.
But Keeton loved to relax, garden and entertain there.
Now she is buried a few steps from the back door, near the swimming pool
where she held fund-raising receptions for the local public library.
"It was successful, probably because people wanted to see the inside of
the property," said neighbor Judy Linville, who attended. "That was the
big draw."
Inside, visitors found countless small sculptures of turtles -
Guccione's G-rated symbol for a magazine that always raced the Playboy
bunny.
In the library, they saw shelves groaning with hardcover science-fiction
novels and glossy coffee-table art books. But they didn't see the studio
upstairs, where Guccione, a painter, has a paint-smeared palette next to
an easel.
The house was built in the 1940s for a member of the Astor family, one
of the magnificent estates for New York's wealthy that lined the Hudson.
The 7,000-square-foot home has an elevator, a wine cellar, two kitchens,
nine fireplaces, 10 bathrooms and a private beach. Guccione was worth an
estimated $500 million at one point, but he squandered it on eccentric
scientific ventures and bad business moves. When Internet porn eroded
Penthouse's profits, publisher General Media Inc. went bankrupt.
The company gave the property last month to Kennedy Funding, a
Hackensack, N.J., private lender that was owed $17 million and had been
hours away from foreclosing on Guccione's upper East Side pad.
General Media's parent company, Penthouse International, got the
townhouse and allowed Guccione to stay there with a $1-a-year lease.
Guccione has other troubles. The bankruptcy fight may force him out of
the magazine he founded, and cancer has left him unable to eat solid
food or speak clearly.
Guccione is supposed to remove all his belongings from the house by
Wednesday, but is trying to line up new funding to reclaim the property.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/178305p-155057c.html