Villa Leopolda e omicidio in un attico di Monaco

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, baronessa 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, con Cary Grant e Grace Kelly nella villa.

Alla morte di Codman, nel 1951, la tenuta fu venduta a Izaak Walton Killam, la cui moglie ereditò la proprietà dopo la sua morte. Alla fine degli anni '50, la vendette al presidente della Fiat Gianni Agnelli (1921-2003) e a Marella Agnelli. Gli Agnelli vendettero Villa Leopolda alla filantropa canadese Dorothy J. Killam nel 1963. Killam visse nella villa fino alla sua morte, avvenuta nel 1965.

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 SafraVivevano a Monaco e usavano la proprietà per organizzare feste incredibilmente sontuose.

The publisher John Fairchild later wrote about one of the Safra’s lavish parties in his book Chic Savages 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, tutti i suoi beni e la sua attività (che lei ha venduto per oltre 350 milioni di dollari), con l'aiuto di Edmond Safra, che era il banchiere del suo defunto marito (e ora anche suo). È così che lei ed Edmond si sono conosciuti.

I fratelli di Safra (che erano anche suoi soci in affari) non volevano che la sposasse. Non solo lei aveva superato l'età fertile, ma era anche sospettata della morte del marito. Edmond ascoltò i fratelli e interruppe la relazione, tornando a New York.

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).

Poco prima di morire, guadagnò miliardi vendendo la sua Trade Development Bank e la Republic National Bank di New York alla HSBC. Questo fu il quarto matrimonio di Lily e, alla morte di Edmond, ereditò oltre 4 miliardi di euro.

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 Prokhorovha tentato più volte di acquistare Villa Leopolda da Lily Safra prima che lei accettasse finalmente la sua offerta per 370 milioni di euro (più 19,5 milioni di euro per l'arredamento della villa) nell'estate del 2008.

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.

Ne vuoi di più? Ecco un elenco delle ville famose, le celebrità che li possedevano e le cose folli che vi accadevano.