Villa Les Cèdres: the most expensive house in the world

The peninsula of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat is "the pearl of the French Riviera", a green oasis between the Principality of Monaco and Nice where the sun shines more than 300 days a year.  It is here that since Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild had a huge and luxurious palace built in 1905, that the society's elite comes together to spend their holidays. And if once these lucky ones were called Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Gregory Peck, Charlie Chaplin, Liz Taylor, Winston Churchill or Gianni Agnelli (who in a famous photo was photographed by Daniel Angeli while diving naked from his yacht), today you will find in the streets of the village Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp Paul Allen and many anonymous new rich people, especially Russians and Arabs. No wonder, then, that in this elite corner of paradise, precisely in Avenue Denis-Siméria, arises what, valued at over 1 billion euros, is called the most expensive house in the world. Considering the numbers of Villa Les Cèdres it is easy to understand the reason for so much prestige: 35 hectares of gardens that include a house of 18,000 square meters, 10 bedrooms, a party room, a large library that contains 3,000 books on flora and naturalism, a winter garden and another beautiful garden overlooking the sea, a botanical park of 14 hectares with over 20 thousand species of plants, 25 greenhouses, a chapel, stables and a 50-meter pool built between the rocks and rocks, overlooking the sea. A long and winding path, flanked by tall palms and cedars that give the name to the house, leads to the bronze statue of Athena, draped in a marble tunic, watching over the front entrance. The Greek goddess of wisdom and war is the silent guardian of a portal that takes us back to the golden age of the Belle Epoque.

Inside, large living rooms, French windows, chandeliers, canopy beds, wallpaper, the many nineteenth-century portraits that go from floor to ceiling and any other piece of furniture contributes to creating a decadent atmosphere that tells an ancient luxury.

Villa Les Cèdres was built in 1830 and in 1850, when it was an olive oil farm, it was bought by the merchant David Désiré Pollonnais who later became mayor of Villefranche sur Mer. The heirs of the man sold the whole complex to King Leopold II of Belgium.

At that time, the nobleman, who often spent his holidays in Monte Carlo, was looking for a place to stay for friends and, above all, his lover, Blanche Zélie Josephine Delacroix. Legend says that it was love at first sight between the two: the king met the girl, who was then a prostitute, in 1899 and soon after asked her to marry him. He was 64 years old, Blanche, who the man simply called "La Bellissima" and after the wedding, she became Baroness of Vaughan, 16.

In 1924, 15 years after Leopold's death, the property was bought by the Marnier-Lapostolle family. The industrialists famous for the production of the Grand Marnier liqueur, a mixture of cognac and triple sec, cultivated for the next 80 years the exotic plants that still fill the land surrounding the villa. According to the chief gardener Marc Teissier, it was in the orchards near the house that the family collected the bigarades, the bitter oranges used to flavor Grand Marnier. In 2016, the house passed into the hands of the Campari family, when they bought the Société des Produits Marnier Lapostolle (SPML), the parent company of Grand Marnier. The price charged was $410 million, but it seems that much less was paid out. The new sale was announced just a few days ago. The name of the buyer has not yet been revealed, but it is known that the preliminary agreement is equal to 200 million. The transaction is expected to be completed by 31 October.