Villa Leopolda és gyilkosság egy monacói penthouse-ban

Built over a century ago, Villa La Leopolda stands on a 50-acre estate in Villefranche-sur-Mer, on some of the most expensive land on the French Riviera. Described as the third-largest home in the world, the sprawling property has 19 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, multiple swimming pools, a bowling alley, a movie theater and an twenty-acre orchard of olive and fruit trees that require a team of 50 full-time gardeners just to care for it. The villa is not only known to have the best sea views in the south of France, but it also sits on 10 acres of immaculate grounds.

The villa was purchased by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902, and he used it with his teenage prostitute mistress. Leopold lavished upon her large sums of money, estates, gifts, and a noble title, baronne de Vaughan (Baroness Vaughan), as well as gifting her Villa Leopolda in 1902. Here’s their sordid story.

During WWI, La Leopolda served as a military hospital. In the 1930s, the villa was significantly expanded by the new owner – American millionaire Ogden Codman, and is still the largest in the area. In 1955, Alfred Hitchcock filmed his ironic detective Catch a Thief, Cary Grant és Grace Kelly főszereplésével a villában.

Codman 1951-es halálakor a birtokot eladták Izaak Walton Killamnek, akinek a felesége örökölte a helyet a halála után. Az 1950-es években eladta a Fiat elnökének, Gianni Agnellinek (1921–2003) és Marella Agnellinek. Agnellisék 1963-ban eladták a Villa Leopoldát Dorothy J. Killam kanadai emberbarátnak. Killam a villában élt egészen 1965-ben bekövetkezett haláláig.

In the 1980s the property passed from the hands of Fiat and Ferrari’s CEO, into the hands of a wealthy Lebanese-Monegasque banker Edmond Safra and his Brazilian wife Lily Safra. Monacóban éltek, és az ingatlant hihetetlenül pazar bulik megtartására használták.

The publisher John Fairchild later wrote about one of the Safra’s lavish parties in his book Elegáns Vadak and described the occasion as “the ultimate in conspicuous consumption.” At one of their parties, female guests were reportedly given ornate enameled boxes featuring a portrait of the villa. The president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Prince Charles, and Prince Rainier III visited the Safra’s at the villa.

Lily and Edmond Safra’s story is one that’s almost too crazy to believe. In 1969, Lily’s second husband, the wealthy Brazilian entrepreneur Alfredo Monteverde, died from two gunshots to the chest, after returning from a lunch with Lily, where they had discussed divorce proceedings. Investigators at the time recovered only one bullet and found no gunpowder on his hands at the scene. Detectives quickly “lost” the two main pieces of evidence (the gun and the single bullet), and ruled it a “suicide”, which Lily did not dispute.

Much to the frustration of his children, who maintain that their father was murdered and that the will was forged, Lily kept his entire fortune, minden vagyonát és vállalkozását (amelyet több mint 350 millió dollárért adott el), Edmond Safra segítségével, aki néhai férje (és most az ő) bankárja volt. Így ismerkedett meg Edmonddal.

Safra testvérei (akik az üzleti partnerei is voltak) nem akarták, hogy feleségül vegye. Nemcsak túl volt a szülőképes koron, de a férje halála miatt is gyanúba került. Edmond hallgatott a testvéreire, és megszakította a kapcsolatot, visszatérve New Yorkba.

Edmond was Lily’s fourth husband (all very wealthy) and the second time she was widowed.

However, something clicked in Edmond and he and Lily were back together by the winter of 1972. Most attribute the change of heart to his discovery of Lily’s third marriage to Moroccan businessman Samuel H. Bendahan, which transpired not long after their initial breakup. Although the marriage only lasted two months, it was enough to catch Edmond’s eye and the two were formally married in 1976. Their pre-nuptial agreement was 600-pages long.

Edmond Safra was murdered in a fire (with mysterious circumstances — the full truth of which is still unknown) in their two-story waterfront Monte Carlo penthouse in 1999, and Lily Safra (who escaped through a window and whose net worth is now estimated at $1.2 billion) still owns the villa. Rumors still circulate about who killed her husband, with some suspecting Lily, and others suspecting the Russia mafia (stemming from the rumors that American Express spread, which you can read about in this book).

Nem sokkal halála előtt milliárdokat keresett azzal, hogy eladta Trade Development Bankját és a New York-i Köztársaság Nemzeti Bankját az HSBC-nek. Lilynek ez volt a 4. házassága, és Edmond halálakor több mint 4 milliárd eurót örökölt.

You can read the whole story in this biography. The biography of Lily Safra, which was written by a professional investigative journalist over the course of 5 years researching in Brazil, was blocked from being sold in Brasil.

Russian billionaire oligarch Mikhail Prokhorovtöbbször is megpróbálta megvenni a Villa Leopoldát Lily Safra-tól, mielőtt végül elfogadta az ajánlatát 370 millió eurós (plusz 19,5 millió eurós a villa bútoraiért) ajánlata 2008 nyarán.

Prokhorov attempted to withdraw from the sale in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which led to a lawsuit between Prokhorov and Safra over the €39 million deposit that he had paid on the villa. A French court ruled against Prokhorov in November 2012 with Safra subsequently announcing that she would donate his deposit to various global charities.

Prokhorov would later deny that he had bought the property, with his spokesperson saying that he had refused to do business in France after his 2007 detention by French police for allegedly providing prostitutes for guests at Courchevel, the ski resort in the French Alps.

Most recently, Lily still had Monaco residency but reportedly spent most of her time in London. According to her biography, she was not in contact with any of her four children. The billionaire died alone, in 2022, at age 87.

Többet akar? Itt van a híres villák listája, a hírességek, akik birtokolták őket, és az ott történt őrült dolgok.