house record smashed by a russian

There must oodles of roubles kicking around in Russia




A MYSTERY Russian businessman has paid about $865 million for the world's most expensive house, a villa on the Cote d'Azur midway between Monaco and Nice.

The Villa Leopolda was built at the turn of the 20th century for mega-rich King Leopold II of Belgium, who made a fortune from the forced labour of natives working on the rubber plantations of his private colony in the Congo.

The villa sits on 8ha of gardens planted with olive, cypress and lemon trees, overlooking Cape Ferrat. Jutting out into the Mediterranean, the cape has been a playground for the rich and famous since Leopold's arrival.

But now the Russians are in town, and the locals are in a flutter as a new breed of super-rich oligarchs jack up prices to sky-high levels.

Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich already owns a $35 million villa down the road but denies being the mystery buyer.

Nice property manager Jean-Marie Tarragoni told a British newspaper the local property market has gone mad.

"Two hundred people are completely destabilising it," he told The Times. He says it reminds him of the 1950s, when Greek shipping tycoons Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos competed for prime slices of the Riviera.

"These Russian oligarchs have thrown themselves into a bidding war like Onassis and Niarchos."

When Leopolda was offered for sale by agents Knight Frank in 1929, the royal Belgian connection featured prominently.

An advertisement placed in The Times boasted that "every possible modern luxury is installed, and there is ample garage accommodation, with chauffeur's quarters and gardener's cottage".

In intervening years Leopolda's owners have included Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli, who used its grounds to throw parties for guests including Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan.

Latest owner Lily Safra, the widow of Lebanese banker Edmond Safra, is believed to have been reluctant to sell, further jacking up the asking price.

The sale sets a new world price record, eclipsing the $240 million Indian-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal paid in May when he snapped up a Georgian mansion in London.