Modern Home + Living

Known for his ironic sense of humor, witty satire and skewed view on magic, Penn Jilette doesn’t stop being the interesting character he is when he exits the stage to his nightly Penn & Teller show at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Vegas. Instead, he brings it home…literally.

Off the strip, Jilette’s home perfectly encompasses the oddball personality of the magician. Purchased back in 1994 and designed by his friend Colin Summers, Jilette’s home, also known as “The Slammer” is anything but ordinary.

“The idea was to create a place that would be very forbidden on the outside, with its industrial and prison-like look; something you wouldn’t want to be in,” he details, which gave way to its unique nickname, “The Slammer.” Sort of a surreal cubist vision in concrete, stucco and steel, Jilette’s home originally had an actual prison-sliding gate with razor wire on top. But it wasn’t for protection.

“Friends who did serious time found coming to my house horrible,” he admits. But “The Slammer” has no conceptual reference to a prison. Instead, the containment unit set up at The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases that’s used to quarantine lab workers who may have become infected with a deadly infectious disease influenced its name. “It’s pretty much an old-looking, sterile room where nothing goes in or out, and I thought, ‘Hey, that's a good name for my house.’”

But don’t be fooled. It was all Jilette’s master plan. “But, from the inside, it’s a very comfortable place with spas, swimming pools, entertainment rooms…somewhere you can live like a college student, but with a lot of money.”

Not one for multipurpose rooms, Jilette made sure that each room in the house was meant for one thing, and one thing only. “I like to know what I’m doing in each room, which means very few hallways with every room having one purpose. I like things pure and simple. Oh, and bright colors, which is why the house looks like it was decorated by a canary.”

While what may sound like a bachelor pad, Jilette readily assures us that everything was done before he became a dad and has since then created a very child-friendly addition to the house.

Acknowledging that he has a fairly large home, Jilette’s favorite room would be his office. “It’s where I spend all my time,” he says. “I have three big, giant monitors hooked together to my keyboard [he’s also a writer], and even have my bass set up in there, so it’s where I type and play jazz. I’m very happy in there for hours.”

Despite being an interesting house by nature, Jilette told us a very unusual story on how he figured out the house’s interior measurements before it was built.  “So the distance of the bedroom to the kitchen is the same distance that a stripper in Vegas was willing to walk naked after sex for a snack,” he laughs. “It’s a true story. We brought her to the grounds during a cold January and asked her what distance she’d walk naked to get food before asking for a blanket. When she stopped to say it was too cold is what we went with. We used that measurement for other rooms, too.”

While it sounds pretty ludicrous in nature, it’s perfect Penn Jilette philosophy—something you have to admire about the man!

Make sure to check out Penn &Teller’s show next time you’re in Vegas, and look out for more projects (TV, books and movies) from Jilette in the near future!