Villa Leopolda & Moord in een penthouse in 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, 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 Thiefmet Cary Grant en Grace Kelly in de hoofdrollen in de villa.

Na het overlijden van Codman in 1951 werd het landgoed verkocht aan Izaak Walton Killam, wiens vrouw het na zijn dood erfde. In de late jaren vijftig verkocht zij het aan Fiat-president Gianni Agnelli (1921-2003) en Marella Agnelli. De Agnelli's verkochten Villa Leopolda in 1963 aan de Canadese filantrope Dorothy J. Killam. Killam woonde in de villa tot haar dood daar in 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 SafraZe woonden in Monaco en gebruikten het pand om buitengewoon extravagante feesten te geven.

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 fortuneAl zijn bezittingen en zijn bedrijf (dat ze voor meer dan 350 miljoen dollar verkocht), met de hulp van Edmond Safra, die de bankier van haar overleden echtgenoot (en nu ook van haar) was. Zo hebben zij en Edmond elkaar leren kennen.

De broers van Safra (die tevens zijn zakenpartners waren) wilden niet dat hij met haar trouwde. Niet alleen was ze de vruchtbare leeftijd voorbij, maar ze werd ook verdacht van de dood van haar man. Edmond luisterde naar zijn broers, verbrak de relatie en keerde terug naar 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).

Kort voor zijn dood verdiende hij miljarden met de verkoop van zijn Trade Development Bank en de Republic National Bank in New York aan HSBC. Dit was Lily's vierde huwelijk en ze erfde meer dan €4 miljard toen Edmond overleed.

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 ProkhorovHij deed verschillende pogingen om Villa Leopolda van Lily Safra te kopen, voordat zij uiteindelijk in de zomer van 2008 zijn bod van €370 miljoen (plus €19,5 miljoen voor het meubilair van de villa) accepteerde.

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.

Meer willen? Hier is een lijst met beroemde villa's, de beroemdheden die ze bezaten en de gekke dingen die daar gebeurden.