Fed up with your tiny apartment? Looking to impress your friends? Got about US$410 million to spare? Then the most expensive home ever to go on sale could be yours.
Yes, the Villa Les Cedres, an 18,000-square-foot, 14-bedroom mega-mansion with stunning ocean views in the south of France is now on the market. It even has royal connections, having been owned in the early 20th century by King Leopold II of Belgium, who apparently thought his palaces at home weren’t quite enough.
Part of the reason for its high price is its location in super-exclusive Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a resort town perched on a picturesque peninsula between Nice and Monaco. Also adding to the cachet is the fact that it is situated on 14 hectares in a community where pricey homes tend to be crowded onto small lots.
But you won’t pay extra for notable neighbours, who include famed composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
The house is currently owned by Italian beverage giant Campari, which inherited the property when it bought Produits Marnier Lapostolle, the maker of Grand Marnier, the orange-flavoured liqueur sometimes used in making margaritas. The Marnier-Lapostolle family bought the home in 1924, Bloomberg reported.
Will it fetch its asking price? With Russian oligarchs, who have until recently been on a buying spree in the area, currently in short supply, Bloomberg says the assessed value may be aspirational.
However, if the price does not drop dramatically, it will become the most expensive residential sale in history, according to CNN, trumping the Clampett estate in Bel Air, California, which listed in August for US$350 million.This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: World’s most expensive house goes on sale with US$410m asking price
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