International Buyer Pays Record $314 Million for Monaco Apartment

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The luxury real estate blogosphere is buzzing about the sale of a Monaco apartment, which might be the most expensive home in the world.

An unknown buyer reportedly paid €240 million (about $314 million) for the 17,500-square-foot penthouse known as La Belle Epoque, where financier Edmond Safra died in a mysterious fire in 1999.

The deal would make the apartment the most expensive home in the world, surpassing the $220 million reportedly paid last month for the penthouse in One Hyde Park in London. (Or at least the most expensive home sale that actually closed, since Russian billionaire and New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov backed out of his deal to buy widow Lily Safra's Villefranche estate, Villa Leopolda, for a reported $531 million.)

One Hyde Park was developed by the Candy Brothers, the press-loving, high-rolling London developers, who also sold the Safra penthouse in Monaco. They reportedly paid £10 million (about $15.6 million) in the early 2000s for the apartment, when Safra's murder was still making headlines, giving the apartment something of a ghoulish vibe, the Daily Mail reported earlier this week.

The Candy Brothers paid about £26 million ($40.6 million) to fix up the apartment, the Daily Mail reported. Special features include TV screens that emerge from walls, a panic room, a roof terrace with views of Monte Carlo and a media room. (Different purchase prices have been cited in stories, usually reflecting differences in exchange rates. Daily Mail said the price was €240 million, or £199 million.)

The Daily Mail story identified the buyer only as an "unnamed Middle Eastern investor, thought to be an Arab sheik." But Luxist, citing a "well-connected Luxist follower," pegged the new owner as Greek billionaire Constantine Alexander-Goulandris, a "close friend and business associate" of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea soccer team.

Citing an entry in Wikipedia, Luxist describes Alexander-Goulandris as "an influential advisor to the Saudi royal family and the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait, as well as the leaders of the UAE and many of the world's largest oil companies." But the Wikipedia entry was deleted today.

Whether accurate or not, there's nothing more fun than a billionaire-buying-spree story. Just last week there was a bit of hysteria in California when a Russian billionaire's boat was spotted off the coast.

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