Thursday, November 26, 2009

UPDATE: Villa Leopolda

The other day Your Mama prattled on about a recent report from the folks at Forbes which listed the 10 highest priced homes on the planet. Listed at number four was Villa Leopolda, international socialite Lily Safra's legendarily high-maintenance estate in the South of France, which the folks at Forbes reported had hit the open market with an asking price of $102,000,000.

But alas babies and butter beans, just as Your Mama suspected, the folks at Forbes got it all kinds of wrong. Somehow, the folks at Forbes managed to mix up Villa Leopolda with Villa Schiffanoia, another high-priced property in the South of France that is currently on the market with a one hundred and two million clam price tag. The Forbes folks rather shocking failure to fact check caused a feeding frenzy among all the global real estate gossips, including Your Mama who jumped in that pool eyes closed and feet first. We really should have known better, but clearly we didn't.

So listen up chickens, not only is the Villa Leopolda not currently for sale, a
ccording to a representative of Miz Safra, the palatial estate never was. Miz Safra's representative told Your Mama, "A purchase proposal was spontaneously–and repeatedly–made by one potential buyer and was finally accepted last year. However, the purchase was never completed. The residence is not being sold and was never offered for sale." Furthermore, according to Miz Safra's representative, the purported and oft reported price of the incomplete sale– a gasp producing $750,000,000– is quite simply, "pure fantasy."

So there y'all have it, straight from the horses mouth. Well, straight from the horses hired mouth anyway. While Your Mama understands Miz Safra's real estate doings ain't nobodies bidness but her own, it would be so much simpler, cleaner and more efficient if all the parties involved in the aborted transaction would just release a statement with the damn details. Then all this nonsense over Villa Leopolda could really be laid to rest and all us real estate gossips would move on to other matters at hand. Just a thought.

8 comments:

Viva! said...

I tell ya Mama I am just going to wait like a nice guy for the *should be impending* Lily Safra HBO movie starring Joan Collins. It might not get filmed this week, this month or even this year. But dammit if it never gets filmed.

Ms. Safra is terrifying! Only Miss Collins could do her justice. Interestingly, Miss Collins has her own villa in the South of France: Villa Destino.

Anonymous said...

It's really sad that Forbes couldn't do very easy fact checking to get their shit straight but the sad thing is that their magazine and website is more often than not riddled with factual errors and that's why I don't subscribe anymore. It's basically a slap in the face to everyone that pays to buy their publication. I hope they get their shit together before they make a really embarrassing error.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mama,

Don't blame yourself about the all thing: it all begun when a French Riviera agency had an ads about the sale of the villa with an asking price of 250 000 000 € and a local newspaper was looking for a huge gossip to excite people on the glizzy beaches of the Riviera...
It was said on their articles that it was an offer made from someone private and that the estate wasn't for sale officially...
And without saying it and controlling their sources, French major newspapers started to gossip about this deal too and surrelly some people found there a way to make them more interesting than they were...
Afterwards, it became a rumor with all the stupidity that can be said when it grows!
But the deal was quickly said to be stopped (as you said in a previous column)but Forbes, with their reknown famous "new rich" attitude, where money and numbers are more important than the true and the fact, have been surrelly sad about it and one of their people saw the opportunity to talk about it and sale few lines again...

You are making, Dear Mama, a great job all the time and you can't not control the work of supposed-to-be well informed Press magazine: your life won't be long enough!

Mrs Safra people did their job when saying the deal was stopped but can't spend their time to control people like Forbes who didn't seem to have notice that this story was over on the French Riviera for months! They have plenty to do!

One sure thing: your work is great Mama!

Take care

Pierre (France)

Anonymous said...

There is a Villa Schifanoia in Umbria, Italy sometimes written Villa Schifanola. Then there is a Villa Schifanoia or is it Schiffanoia?, near Villefranche sur Mer. I hope you will straighten all this out for us. How is it spelled and where is it, exactly? The listing for the Cote d'Azur villa has it spelled both ways.

Anonymous said...

And here it is with One "f" and Two "n"s.

http://www.fassinoimmobiliare.com/schiffanoia.html

Anonymous said...

Schifanoïa (the correct spelling) mean "away from the noise" (litterally: disgust by the noise): it was given to the Villefranche sur Mer villa by the italian writter D'Annunzio, while he rent the villa at the family Tiranty who built the house in 1875.
There are many villa with this name (Umbria, Firenze etc.) like "Fiorentina" for exemple: Cap Ferrat, Cannes, Toscana...
A villa name is not a brand, and because of its meaning, many places can be called the same!
Originally, the villa outside color was red.
The glass roof inside was created by the Eiffel Atelier like the Hotel Hermitage one in Monte-Carlo(Gustave Eiffel, a very successful engeneer, built for his family a villa in the neighbour village of Beaulieu sur Mer).
The villa is on the Basse Corniche, while getting out of Villefranche and going to Beaulieu, on the left hills.
The villa is for sale for ages now: 6 years ago, it was 38 000 000€ and now 70 000 000€, but it is more often rent between 200 000€and 300 000€ per month in summer season.
Pierre (France)

Anonymous said...

Sorry: "noia" means problem / boredom! A translation mistake!!!!
Pierre (France)

Anonymous said...

Pierre,

Thanks again for the extra info around these properties on the French Riviera.

Would like to hear more from you on properties such as Chateau de le Croe,
King of UAE waterfront property in Cannes, and the magnificent estate that ended up in the hands of an African Airline - fishy story around one of the most magnificent estate in Cannes, unfortunately can't seem to remember the name now.


Sorry you had issues to reach me, let's try again:

**jp_blanc**@**hotmail**.**com

please remove all the **

Hope it will work this time.

Cheers,

JP