World’s most expensive home for sale wants $413M in the South of France

If you marveled at the most expensive homes in America and China, you’re in for a treat. France’s 187-year-old mansion Villa Les Cèdres has just hit the market for a cool $413 million, making it the priciest home on earth, according to Bloomberg.

The amenities are numerous. First, you have sheer size: The home is 18,000 square feet with 14 bedrooms on a 35-acre estate. Then, there’s the luxe interior ornamentation—paneling, moldings, painted coffered ceilings, chandeliers, and extravagant wallpapers. Prospective buyers may also elect to buy the home’s furnishings, much of which hails from the Belle Époque, including enormous portraits, carved bed frames, and a 3,000-volume library of books on plants and naturalism.

The home’s location is also highly coveted. Located near Nice in the South of France, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat has long been a playground for European aristocracy. The next buyer will become neighbors with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

But it’s the history that might be the most enticing aspect of Villa Les Cèdres. Built in 1830, the mansion was bought in 1850 by the mayor of Villefranche-sur-Mer and the estate used as an olive tree farm. It was then sold in 1904 to Belgium’s King Leopold II, who built out the home’s splendid gardens (with cash from the exploitation of resources in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo).

In 1924, it sold to the Marnier-Lapostolle family, who harvested the bitter oranges of the estate to flavor the liqueur they created, Grand Marnier. The home was still owned by Grand Marnier when its parent company was acquired by Italian distiller Davide Campari-Milano SpA last year, who is now looking to sell.

Via: The Spaces, Bloomberg