Day 1179 (Monday) 31^st August 2020

Today is officially the last day of the summer season and most of France has gone back to work, although the kids don’t go back to school until tomorrow. I’ve started to get a few work emails so hopefully I will get more students soon.

Going back to that house I mentioned yesterday, which is just up the hill from the apartment we look after. You can’t see any of it from the road because of a high wall all the way around it and many, many trees. Huw found this article online yesterday while searching for some information about the Tour de France – enjoy!

Villa La Leopolda is a large detached villa located in Villefranche-sur-Mer, in the Alpes-Maritimes department, on the French Riviera. It sits on 8 hectares of land and has had several notable owners including Gianni and Marella Agnelli, Izaak and Dorothy J. Killam and, since 1987, by Edmond (1932–1999) and Lily Safra, who inherited the villa after the death of her husband. It was put back on the market in 2016. Villa Leopolda has no less than 10 bedrooms and is part of an enviable setting. This house (if you can call it a house) is one of the three most expensive houses in the world , and is estimated to be around 750 million dollars (approximately 653 million euros).

This villa is the third most expensive house in the world, the first being Buckingham Palace and the second being a house in India (Antilia) , built in 2010.

Villa La Leopolda, in its current incarnation, was designed and built from 1929 to 1931 by an American architect, Ogden Codman, Jr, on an estate that once belonged to King Leopold II of Belgium. Léopold had made the old estate a gift for his mistress Blanche Zélia Joséphine Delacroix, also known as Caroline Lacroix, who owes her her name. After Leopold's death, Blanche Delacroix was expelled and her nephew, King Albert I, became its owner. During the First World War, Villa La Leopolda was used as a military hospital.

In 1919, Thérèse Vitali, Countess of Beauchamp, acquired the property and had its modifications carried out. American architect Ogden Codman Jr. purchased the dozen existing structures that made up the property, including two peasant cottages, and began his architectural work in 1929. This was completed in 1931. However, financial difficulties (and enormous expense) prevented him from being able to live there, so he rented to various well-heeled tenants. A famous English couple tried to praise her, but were keen to make changes contrary to Codman's aesthetic goals and the strict list of protective clauses. Negotiations in a Parisian hotel room failed in the face of numerous restrictions imposed by Codman.

Codman's extensive designs and construction gave the estate, once a series of unrelated buildings, its current appearance. His neo-Palladian vision, combined with his in-depth knowledge of historical precedents, enabled the construction of a spectacular villa with expansive gardens and landscaping. Ground plans, letters, recordings and stereoscopic views of the new property remain in the collections of the New England Society for the Preservation of Antiquities. Upon Codman's death in 1951, the property was sold to Izaak Walton Killam, whose wife inherited the premises after his death. At the end of the 1950s, she sold it to Gianni Agnelli, president of Fiat, and to Marella Agnelli.

The Agnellis then sold the magnificent and enormous Villa Leopolda to Canadian philanthropist Dorothy J. Killam in 1963. She lived in the villa until her death in 1965. In 1987, La Léopolda became one of the banker's properties. Edmond Safra and his wife, Lily. The Safras entrusted Renzo Mongiardino with the interior design, while the rooms on the second floor were decorated by Mica Ertegün. The Safras organised big parties at the villa, and at a party held in 1988, female hosts were presented with an enamel box with a portrait of Villa Leopolda. Author John Fairchild has described the party as “the height of conspicuous consumption”. Banker Bill Browder recounted his visit to Safra at Villa Leopolda with Beny Steinmetz in his 2014 memoir Red Notice. A team of former Israeli commandos ensured the safety of the Safra at the villa. The Safras lived about 10 miles from Villa Leopolda, in a penthouse apartment in Monaco.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov made several attempts to buy the opulent Villa Leopolda from Lily Safra before finally accepting his offer in the amount of 370 million euros (plus 19.5 million euros for furniture of the villa) in 2008. The first reports on the sale of the villa in July 2008 had falsely identified his fellow Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, as the buyer. Prokhorov will later deny having bought the property. His spokesperson reportedly said he refused to do business in France after his 2007 detention by French police for allegedly supplying prostitutes to guests in Courchevel, the ski resort in the French Alps. No charges have ever been brought against Prokhorov in the prostitution case. Prokhorov attempted to back out of the sale following the 2008 financial crisis, which resulted in a dispute between Mikhail Prokhorov and Lily Safra over the € 39 million security deposit he paid on the villa. In November 2012, a French court ruled against Prokhorov. Lily Safra then announced that she would donate her deposit to various global charities.

The villa was presumably put back on the real estate market in 2016 for an incredible $ 750 million. Not within everyone's reach therefore!