Remember that Cap Ferrat Mansion that we told you about last year?

The Villa Les Cèdres, built in 1830, that boasts 18 000 square feet, 14 bedrooms, 35 acres of manicured lawns, and private gardens with thousands of exotic plants?

It was also the home of the man described as a “white supremacist extraordinaire” and “Satan and Mammon in one person”, King Leopold II of Belgium.

Well, you might recall that Davide Campari-Milano SpA, which produces Campari along with about 50 other drinks, said last August that it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell the villa to an unspecified buyer for private use, at a price of €200 million (around R3,2 billion).

It was a little less than the original asking price, but still a tidy sum.

That buyer turned out to be Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who has added the 19th-century Palladian mansion and botanical gardens to his already extensive property portfolio, which already includes a £137 million flat in London’s One Hyde Park.

Let’s take a stroll through the grounds:

Delightful.

Over to the Financial Times for more on Ukraine’s richest man:

Mr Akhmetov is Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch, with a portfolio valued by Forbes at $6.7bn after a dramatic rise from his origins as a coalminer’s son in the eastern region of Donetsk.

Through his company, System Capital Management (SCM), he owns a stake in the mining and steel firm Metinvest Group along with holdings spanning energy, engineering, finance, retail and real estate, and the football club Shakhtar Donetsk.

In a statement, regarding the purchase of the Villa Les Cèdres, SCM said that they saw the property as a long-term investment.

Cap Ferrat is certainly a sought after area. It’s the preferred holiday spot for our very own Seth Rotherham, who has spent a fair amount of time there and speaks very highly of its charms.

No word on whether Seth has received his personal invite from Akhmetov to pop by and visit, but we’ll keep you posted.

[source:financialtimes]