Meet suburbia's Playboy-style party hosts

So, there are these guys who like to channel their inner Hugh Hefners and hold big rollicking  parties, featuring scantily clad women and top-shelf liquor, at their McMansion spreads in the East Bay suburbs.

One party guy is/or was  Kevin Degnan, a Walnut Creek plastic surgeon.  AKA Dr. Playboy was in the news quite a bit a few years back because his parties were annoying his neighbors in Alamo's exclusive Jones Ranch enclave. More recently, he was involved in the public debate over closing times at the controversial downtown Walnut Creek night spot, Lift Lounge and Grill.

The other guy is William Hogarty, a former mortgage broker "cum professional party thrower" (in the words of the Pleasanton Weekly)  who has been charged with aggravated assault in connection with a July 3 incident at his 12,978-square-foot, eight-bedroom, 12-car garage mansion (above) in a remote area of Livermore.

The Weekly reports that Hogarty,  47, was arrested on suspicion of choking his roommate unconscious after threatening to kill him. The fight had something to do with Hogarty being mad that the roommate was talking to his estranged wife.

Last reports say that Hogarty (right) was being held at Alameda County's Santa Rita jail in Dublin with bail set at $130,000.

Hogarty has been in heaps of other trouble.

Hogarty surrendered his broker's license in 2010 after the state Department of Real Estate received dozens of complaints about his Pleasanton real estate firm, OF Lending Group, and issued a cease and desist order, according to the Weekly. Hogarty  opened, then closed two other real estate firms which promised to help people about to lose their homes. The Weekly adds:

Hogarty, with his now-estranged wife Christy, began holding parties in what was apparently a last-ditch effort to raise money at the couple's 92-acre property in the 7000 block of Morgan Territory Road in unincorporated Livermore. Among them was the "Fallen Angels Lingerie and Pajama Affair," and "Mardi Gras at the Mansion (above)" with an upcoming "Moulin Rouge" party set for July 14.

The Moulin Rouge party promised to be "the closest thing to the Playboy mansion parties" in Northern California. It invited ladies to put on "their sexy lingerie wear and some high heels" so that they could participate in the "sexiest burlesque diva of the night" contest. As Grey Goose vodka and champagne flow, female guests are offered to the chance "to go the extra mile" and show off "their sexy moves on the dance floor."


I wonder if Hogarty ever went to parties hosted by Kevin Degnan (right). I blogged about Dr. Playboy when the plastic surgeon was embroiled in the lawsuit with his neighbors, who complained about how Degnan would helicopter party guests into to his 13-acre estate. They also alleged that the parties were cesspools of public sex and underage drinking -- and that his guests made lots of noise, shouted obscenities, littered the sreets, and parked in front of their driveways.

As for Lift Lounge, Degnan described himself as "friends' of Lift's owners when he appeared (left) before a Dec. 8 Walnut Creek Planning Commission meeting. At that meeting, the commission heard complaints about repeated police service calls, assaults and a drug arrest at the bar.  The city in February scaled back Lift's hours for alcohol service to 11:30 p.m.but decided in June that Lift had instituted measures to address those problem issues and let it return to its 12:30 a.m. cutoff time for alcohol sales.

Anyway, it's interesting -- to me anyway -- that the 'burbs have become the hot spot for a new kind of party scene. Actually, it makes sense -- you need a big spread in a semi-remote gated area to host hundreds of revelers, who usually buy tickets to get in. And then there are these guys who think it's cool  to open their homes to all those strangers.. Degnan and Hogarty seem to share certain tendencies: a passion for self-promotion? A touch of grandiosity?

They certainly have a penchant for physical fitness. On a MySpace page -- remember MySpace? -- Degnan talked about being "an artist whose medium is the human body."

Meanwhile, Hogarty actually won the 2005 Mr. California Bodybuilding Championship, though his devotion to the sport has gotten him into trouble. He has become prone to steroid-induced rages, his roommate told investigators.

Hogarty does not see himself as a violent, ethnically compromised guy. The father of two young daughters explains himself at quite some length on his Facebook page and website, often referring to himself in the third person:

"William Hogarty was blessed with a huge amount of success. ...and has a huge heart and is loved by people close to him yet often misunderstood even disliked by people an arms length from him. ... 

William Hogarty had a huge weakness early in his life as he tried to make everyone like him, which is impossible at best. William Hogarty believes he has a bigger purpose in life to share what he has learned from success which can be just as addictive as any drug ... "