Berlusconi’s £700m property portfolio – including Sardinian mansion that hosted Tony Blair and Putin – is put up for sale… but ‘bunga bunga’ party pad where his lover still lives will be kept in the family, his children reveal
- Berlusconi had hundreds of properties including dozens of villas and mansions
A slew of properties that once belonged to the late Silvio Berlusconi – including some of Italy’s most luxurious mansions and decadent getaways all around the globe – are now up for sale months after his death.
Berlusconi, who died in June aged 86 after a litany of health issues culminating in a leukaemia diagnosis, was a titan of Italian politics and culture renowned for mixing business with pleasure – and had a property portfolio to match.
The three-time Prime Minister, who also built a massive media empire whilst fighting a string of court cases on charges from mafia collusion to underage prostitution, commanded hundreds of stunning properties including opulent palazzos, lakeside villas, mansions and penthouses from his native Italy to Antigua.
Villa Certosa – a mansion nestled on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast where Berlusconi hosted a lavish welcome reception for Tony and Cherie Blair in August 2004, is just one of the incredible houses up for sale, and is expected to fetch some €250 million.
But although Berlusconi’s five children decided to sell off most of his real estate, sources told Italy’s ANSA news service, one home will remain in the family.
Villa San Martino near Milan – perhaps Berlusconi’s most treasured home and the site of his infamous ‘bunga bunga’ orgies – is not to be sold.
Berlusconi is pictured with his 33-year-old ‘wife’ Marta Fascina, an MP in his Forza Italia party
Villa Certosa boasts just about every vulgar accoutrement required to satisfy the most demanding superstar, status-conscious Russian billionaire or even aspiring James Bond villain in search of an improbable lair
Villa Certosa in Sardinia, Italy is home to this amphitheatre complex
Villa San Martino in Lombardy began as the Berlusconi family home, but became infamous for the Italian Prime Minister’s Bunga Bunga parties
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) and his wife Cherie (C) meet with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi (L) in Porto Cervo, Sardinia Island, Italy, Monday 16 August 2004. Tony Blair and his wife are guests of Berlusconi at his Certosa Villa in Sardinia
One of Berlusconi’s two lakeside homes, Villa Belinzaghi in Como will set you back £11million – but your neighbour is George Clooney
Palazzo Grazioli is a massive townhouse in the centre of Rome filled with art
‘Villa San Martino must stay alive. We want it to remain the venue for business meetings, as well as, of course, the meeting point for our family,’ said Marina Berlusconi last month.
READ MORE: The astonishing life of Silvio Berlusconi
‘It is what [my father] would have wished.’
Bought with the proceeds of his investment in Italy’s construction boom of the 1960s, Berlusconi crammed the 18th Century manor house with Renaissance paintings and other treasures.
The artworks were the backdrop to his not so family-friendly parties, where a star guest was a 17-year-old Moroccan-born dancer nicknamed ‘Ruby the Heart Stealer’.
The basement is where he is said to have watched showgirls from his own TV channels offering pole dances and stripteases dressed as nuns – occasions Berlusconi later described as ‘elegant soirees’.
Now, the mansion serves as the resting place for Berlusconi’s ashes.
But Berlusconi’s children face stiff competition in the battle for their father’s prized villa, because Marta Fascina, a 33-year-old MP whom Berlusconi ‘married’ last year in a pseudo wedding, still resides there.
The pair never formally married, reportedly due to the concerns of the Berlusconi family who were wary of Fascina trying to muscle in on the inheritance.
But Fascina – 53 years Berlusconi’s junior – did receive a tidy sum of €100 million upon her elderly lover’s death.
Billionaire and Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi was as famous for his ‘bunga-bunga’ sex parties and for being prime minister three times
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s residency Villa Gernetto, in Lesmo. This is where he staged his ‘wedding’ to 33-year-old Marta Fascina
Berlusconi’s property at Emerald Cove on the Caribbean island of Antigua
Paraggi Castle in Portofino is a 17th Century fort owned by Berlusconi which was once occupied by Napoleon’s troops
Ruby the Heart Stealer (real name Karima Keyek) was the 17-year-old Moroccan-born prostitute who stole Berlusconi’s affections at one of many bunga bunga parties
The back of Palazzo Grazioli, private residence of the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on February 1, 2011 in Rome
Timeline: Silvio Berlusconi’s life in key dates
September 29, 1936: Born in Milan.
1961: Starts his real estate career, building residential districts on the outskirts of Milan.
1978: Founds the Fininvest holding company.
1994: Creates the ‘Forza Italia’ (Go Italy) movement, which wins legislative elections, giving him his first stint as prime minister from May to December.
1996: Goes on trial on corruption charges and is sentenced to 16 months in prison for false accounting, but acquitted on appeal.
2001: Starts a second stint as prime minister after his right-wing alliance wins the general election, serving for five years.
2008: Returns as prime minister until 2011, resigning in the midst of a national financial crisis.
2013: Sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud. The sentence is commuted to one year of community service.
2015: Acquitted on appeal after a 2013 conviction for paying for sex with a teenage prostitute and abuse of power in the ‘Bunga Bunga’ affair.
2019: Wins a seat in the European Parliament, becoming the assembly’s oldest MEP at age 82.
2020: Spends 11 days in hospital with Covid-19, calling the experience ‘perhaps the most difficult ordeal’ of his life.
2022: Campaigns behind the scenes to become Italy’s president but withdraws before voting begins in parliament.
February 2023: The ‘Bunga Bunga’ sex scandal comes to an end when an Italian court acquits him of charges.
April 5, 2023: Admitted to intensive care, doctors announce he is suffering from leukaemia.
May 19: Discharged from hospital after more than six weeks of treatment, saying, ‘I won again’.
June 9: Hospitalised for what his doctors say are ‘routine checks’ related to his leukaemia.
June 12: Dies at San Raffaele hospital.
Besides Villa San Martino, Berlusconi’s best-loved property was said to be the Villa Certosa in Sardinia.
The real estate consists of a sprawling 26,000 sq ft pile of 68 rooms set on a 170-acre estate, and was Berlusconi’s preferred location to host important guests.
When Tony and Cherie Blair visited in 2004, he put on a £50,000 firework display that culminated in rockets spelling out ‘Viva Tony’ in the Mediterranean sky.
Villa Certosa also played host to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who enjoyed a spot of sunbathing with the former Italian PM, and it is where Berlusconi was photographed surrounded by topless models said to have been flown in on Italian air force planes.
Guests who preferred discretion could arrive via a secret tunnel hollowed out of a cave where they could disembark from their boats beyond the gaze of the paparazzi.
A monument to ostentation, quite apart from its 25 bedrooms, five swimming pools and 300-seater faux ancient Greek amphitheatre, the villa stuns any visitors with a mock volcano in its grounds, which at the flick of a switch emits the sound of eruption and sends fake lava cascading out of its cone.
Along with the five pools there was a man-made lagoon, full-size football pitch, golf course, tennis courts and helipad. The grounds were planted with 1,000 cacti, olive and orange groves and 400 varieties of flowers.
In 2009, when the tycoon was in his final stint as Italy’s leader, it was also the scene of a scandal.
Photographs published in Spain – he took legal action to prevent them appearing in Italy – showed not just topless women but a naked man cavorting by the pool, later identified as former Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek.
Berlusconi attempted to brush it off with his usual brashness. His guests, he explained, were taking a shower, adding: ‘Do you take a shower in jacket and tie?’
Among the other notable residences up for sale is Villa Grande, situated on Rome’s ancient Appian Way, once owned by film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli, and Villa Gernetto, a sprawling residence in Lesmo where Berlusconi staged his pseudo wedding to Fascina.
The Berlusconi children, conscious of avoiding family disputes over inheritance, recently signed an accord outlining the distribution of the family’s holding company, Fininvest.
The properties, expected to attract foreign buyers, are likely to be valued at somewhere between €700 million – €800 million.
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