Damn, but Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud is on a mission to go big.

It has been revealed that the once little-known Saudi Prince, who splashed out when he got himself Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” for a whopping $450,3 million (R6,5 billion) at an auction last month, has a habit of treating himself.

You see, since it was revealed that he was the buyer of the piece, his name has not been forgotten.

Rather, it has encouraged peeps to look at what else the prince has bought – and it appears he owns the most expensive house in the world, too, reports The Telegraph:

The Saudi crown prince leading a corruption crackdown that has seen dozens of his country’s wealthiest men locked up has been revealed as the buyer of “the world’s most expensive home,” a report has said.

The Chateau Louis XIV, a 50,000 sq ft palace near Versailles that Kim Kardashian once considered as a potential wedding location, was sold for €275 million (R3.7 billion) in 2015.

The buyer was not identified at the time, but the New York Times now reports that its investigation shows that the purchaser was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The newspaper’s probe “showed a paper trail that leads from the purchase of the castle, which Forbes magazine has called the “world’s most expensive home,” to the heir to the Saudi throne”:

The New York Times said that Chateau Louis XIV’s ownership was concealed by various shell companies in France and Luxembourg.

But they are all owned by Eight Investment Company, a Saudi firm run by the head of Prince Mohammed’s personal foundation, it said, basing its claims on information revealed in the so-called Paradise Papers leak of millions of documents hacked from a Bermuda law firm.

It has been suggested that the claim is likely to embarrass the 32-year-old prince, who is “preaching fiscal austerity at home while leading a major crackdown on corruption and self-enrichment by the oil-rich kingdom’s elite”.

Tsk, tsk.

There was also evidence of a purchase of a $500 million (R6,5 billion), yacht as well as an 620-acre estate near Paris in Condé-sur-Vesgre, known as Le Rouvray.

Damn, but Prince Bader must be regretting the acquisition of that da Vinci painting, huh? Let them eat cake, I say!

Okay, I know how much you enjoy looking at property, so let’s take a quick look at the Chateau Louis XIV:

It has indoor and outdoor pools, a private cinema, a squash court, two ballrooms, and a nightclub.

There are 10 bedroom suites, a grand reception room with a 52ft-high frescoed dome ceiling, a library, a wine cellar with space for 3,000 bottles, and a “meditation room” under the moat circled by an aquarium with huge sturgeon inside.

Chateau Louis XIV is modelled on 17th-century French castles but was in fact only built a few years ago.

Tough life.

[source:thetelegraph]