As reported in the London Times, Gianni Versace, the flamboyant Italian fashion designer, was gunned down on the steps of his Miami mansion in 1997, Villa Fontanelle, his beautiful weekend home on the shores of Lake Como, has sat virtually lifeless.
The yellow 19th-century palazzina was for 20 years his favourite house, and the scene of glamorous weekend parties attended by guests such as Princess Diana, Elton John, Sting and Madonna. Over the past 10 years, however, while Versace’s family and the fashion world mourned his loss, the elegant four-storey property near the village of Moltrasio has been left largely uninhabited (bar the odd celebrity visit: Jennifer Lopez spent her honeymoon there with husband number two, Cris Judd, in 2001). Photo slide show.
Now Villa Fontanelle’s scores of wooden shutters are set to be flung open to the spring sunshine once again. The house is being bought for £26m by a Russian businessman in a private deal. Sources close to the transaction have named him as Arkady Novikov, a multi-millionaire restaurateur known as the “blini baron of Moscow”. They have revealed he is paying at least £3m more than the asking price set by the Versace company last summer to ensure the house doesn’t go on the open market.
The bid will also make sure nobody else gets to view the fabled ornate interiors or wander on the grand terraces and manicured gardens created by one of the world’s boldest style-makers. Neither Novikov, 46, nor Aylesford, a top-end Chelsea estate agency involved with marketing the villa, would comment on the sale.
Versace, the creator of that dress – the two slinky strips of black fabric, held together with safety pins, that catapulted Liz Hurley into the limelight in 1994 – owned several grand homes, including properties in Milan and New York. But it was on the tranquil Lake Como estate, 30 miles from Milan, that the Calabrian-born designer would seek refuge from work with his long-term lover, the former model Antonio D’Amico, and members of his family, including his beloved niece Allegra, now 21, to whom he left half of his fortune.
Versace said of Fontanelle: “The house in Moltrasio is a Proust house, whereas the ones in Milano and Miami are more Batman. . . It is the house that really belongs to me, reflecting a mirror image of all that I am, for better or worse.”
The property was built in the first half of the 19th century by Lord Charles Currie, an eccentric visiting Englishman who fell in love with Lake Como. Failing to find a villa for sale, he decided to create his own, right on the water’s edge. By 1977, when it was bought by Versace, it was in a state of abandonment, and the designer set about restoring it to its former neoclassical glory. The work, completed in December 1980, included landscaping the three acres of ornamental gardens, which now have a tennis court, water frontage and a private mooring.
Versace was as hands-on – and outrageous – with the renovation and decoration of the villa as he was with the gold lamé suits that established his reputation in the 1970s. He chose every item himself, from furniture and paintings to table linen and dinnerware, creating a mini palace that was a personal shrine. Midnight blue and gold, the signature colour scheme of the Versace fashion house, featured throughout, along with the Medusa-head logo and hundreds upon hundreds of neoclassical objets d’art.
The villa also became a homage to the male form. Many of the rooms have magnificent full-size marble nudes of Greek gods, set on plinths. The dining room is said to be decorated with large plasterwork medallions and lit by a Russian crystal chandelier that originally hung in a palace in St Petersburg.
Preoccupations with the grandiose and the imperial continue elsewhere: the enormous main bedroom, with an empire bed, has blue satin armchairs and more statues of Greek deities. Bathrooms, themed in blue and gold, feature red marble detailing and are adorned with medallions of Roman emperors, marble busts and classically inspired artwork and urns. One source close to the sale adds of the property: “It is a magnificent house, very elegant, very rare and one of the prettiest houses I’ve ever seen.”
So, minimalist it is not. Another who viewed the property prior to the sale says of it: “There is a lot of bizarre furnishing one knows the family enjoys, but which may not be to everyone’s taste – especially the two enormous stone men in the main bedroom.”
Like Versace, Fontanelle’s soon-to-be owner is, in his own way, a radical. Novikov, who recently bought a villa on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda – next door to Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria Zhukova – is credited with transforming the restaurant scene in the Russian capital. He has introduced sushi, caribou and nachos with deep-fried onion blossom to the menus of a culinary empire that includes 47 restaurants and a chain of cafes. He starred in the Russian version of the reality-television show The Apprentice.
Trained as a chef in Soviet days, Novikov applied for job at McDonald’s when it opened its first branch in Moscow in 1990, but his boasts about the number of different cuisines he could cook failed to impress the Americans. Undaunted, two years later he borrowed $50,000 from a friend and set up Sirena, which became Moscow’s finest fish restaurant, with a dining room in the style of a wooden galleon and an aquarium beneath a glass floor. Such exuberant style perfectly fitted the brash taste of the novi Russki, the class of new Russians who made fortunes during the collapse of communism. Another early restaurant was The White Sun of the Desert, which featured belly dancers, live cockfights and and overflowing buffets of Uzbek delicacies.
The kitsch bling of his restaurants does not appear to match his sartorial tastes. The shaven-headed Novikov favours the clean-cut look – white T-shirts, dark suits and blazers – with his flair evident only in his business ventures. He says on his company’s website: “I grew up late, reading fairy tales until I was 15.” And: “I am often asked whether I’m going to expand my company. I always tell myself, ‘Enough. Stop.’ But I can’t stop!”
Whether or not Fontanelle’s over-the-top decor will appeal to Novikov is anybody’s guess, but it looks as if he will be undertaking his own decorative schemes. Some furnishings from the villa were auctioned in 2005, and sources close to the sale say that Sotheby’s Milan is lined up to sell off other contents later this year. The company has declined to comment. Whatever happens to the interior, however, Fontanelle will never lose the glamour of its past and its dolce vita party spirit – albeit mixed in with a fairy tale that ended in tragedy.
Roy Strong, the garden designer and former director of the V&A who was entrusted with landscaping the park for Versace, has fond memories of a key chapter in the villa’s recreation – and of its owner. “My wife and I stayed there every year for more than 10 years,” he recalls. “I went one year, and Gianni didn’t seem interested in the garden, but I made some sketches. The next year, he took us to our bedroom, threw open the shutters and said, ‘Here’s your garden.’ And there it was. There were statues, fountains; the trees were very old, and their branches just trailed into the river.
“He was a genius in a way. We were good friends, but it was a private friendship. To me, he ranked among the shyest people I’ve met. We would just read and go for walks. He had wonderful collections, and it was a wonderful house. It really is the end of an era.”
The yellow 19th-century palazzina was for 20 years his favourite house, and the scene of glamorous weekend parties attended by guests such as Princess Diana, Elton John, Sting and Madonna. Over the past 10 years, however, while Versace’s family and the fashion world mourned his loss, the elegant four-storey property near the village of Moltrasio has been left largely uninhabited (bar the odd celebrity visit: Jennifer Lopez spent her honeymoon there with husband number two, Cris Judd, in 2001). Photo slide show.
Now Villa Fontanelle’s scores of wooden shutters are set to be flung open to the spring sunshine once again. The house is being bought for £26m by a Russian businessman in a private deal. Sources close to the transaction have named him as Arkady Novikov, a multi-millionaire restaurateur known as the “blini baron of Moscow”. They have revealed he is paying at least £3m more than the asking price set by the Versace company last summer to ensure the house doesn’t go on the open market.
The bid will also make sure nobody else gets to view the fabled ornate interiors or wander on the grand terraces and manicured gardens created by one of the world’s boldest style-makers. Neither Novikov, 46, nor Aylesford, a top-end Chelsea estate agency involved with marketing the villa, would comment on the sale.
Versace, the creator of that dress – the two slinky strips of black fabric, held together with safety pins, that catapulted Liz Hurley into the limelight in 1994 – owned several grand homes, including properties in Milan and New York. But it was on the tranquil Lake Como estate, 30 miles from Milan, that the Calabrian-born designer would seek refuge from work with his long-term lover, the former model Antonio D’Amico, and members of his family, including his beloved niece Allegra, now 21, to whom he left half of his fortune.
Versace said of Fontanelle: “The house in Moltrasio is a Proust house, whereas the ones in Milano and Miami are more Batman. . . It is the house that really belongs to me, reflecting a mirror image of all that I am, for better or worse.”
The property was built in the first half of the 19th century by Lord Charles Currie, an eccentric visiting Englishman who fell in love with Lake Como. Failing to find a villa for sale, he decided to create his own, right on the water’s edge. By 1977, when it was bought by Versace, it was in a state of abandonment, and the designer set about restoring it to its former neoclassical glory. The work, completed in December 1980, included landscaping the three acres of ornamental gardens, which now have a tennis court, water frontage and a private mooring.
Versace was as hands-on – and outrageous – with the renovation and decoration of the villa as he was with the gold lamé suits that established his reputation in the 1970s. He chose every item himself, from furniture and paintings to table linen and dinnerware, creating a mini palace that was a personal shrine. Midnight blue and gold, the signature colour scheme of the Versace fashion house, featured throughout, along with the Medusa-head logo and hundreds upon hundreds of neoclassical objets d’art.
The villa also became a homage to the male form. Many of the rooms have magnificent full-size marble nudes of Greek gods, set on plinths. The dining room is said to be decorated with large plasterwork medallions and lit by a Russian crystal chandelier that originally hung in a palace in St Petersburg.
Preoccupations with the grandiose and the imperial continue elsewhere: the enormous main bedroom, with an empire bed, has blue satin armchairs and more statues of Greek deities. Bathrooms, themed in blue and gold, feature red marble detailing and are adorned with medallions of Roman emperors, marble busts and classically inspired artwork and urns. One source close to the sale adds of the property: “It is a magnificent house, very elegant, very rare and one of the prettiest houses I’ve ever seen.”
So, minimalist it is not. Another who viewed the property prior to the sale says of it: “There is a lot of bizarre furnishing one knows the family enjoys, but which may not be to everyone’s taste – especially the two enormous stone men in the main bedroom.”
Like Versace, Fontanelle’s soon-to-be owner is, in his own way, a radical. Novikov, who recently bought a villa on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda – next door to Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria Zhukova – is credited with transforming the restaurant scene in the Russian capital. He has introduced sushi, caribou and nachos with deep-fried onion blossom to the menus of a culinary empire that includes 47 restaurants and a chain of cafes. He starred in the Russian version of the reality-television show The Apprentice.
Trained as a chef in Soviet days, Novikov applied for job at McDonald’s when it opened its first branch in Moscow in 1990, but his boasts about the number of different cuisines he could cook failed to impress the Americans. Undaunted, two years later he borrowed $50,000 from a friend and set up Sirena, which became Moscow’s finest fish restaurant, with a dining room in the style of a wooden galleon and an aquarium beneath a glass floor. Such exuberant style perfectly fitted the brash taste of the novi Russki, the class of new Russians who made fortunes during the collapse of communism. Another early restaurant was The White Sun of the Desert, which featured belly dancers, live cockfights and and overflowing buffets of Uzbek delicacies.
The kitsch bling of his restaurants does not appear to match his sartorial tastes. The shaven-headed Novikov favours the clean-cut look – white T-shirts, dark suits and blazers – with his flair evident only in his business ventures. He says on his company’s website: “I grew up late, reading fairy tales until I was 15.” And: “I am often asked whether I’m going to expand my company. I always tell myself, ‘Enough. Stop.’ But I can’t stop!”
Whether or not Fontanelle’s over-the-top decor will appeal to Novikov is anybody’s guess, but it looks as if he will be undertaking his own decorative schemes. Some furnishings from the villa were auctioned in 2005, and sources close to the sale say that Sotheby’s Milan is lined up to sell off other contents later this year. The company has declined to comment. Whatever happens to the interior, however, Fontanelle will never lose the glamour of its past and its dolce vita party spirit – albeit mixed in with a fairy tale that ended in tragedy.
Roy Strong, the garden designer and former director of the V&A who was entrusted with landscaping the park for Versace, has fond memories of a key chapter in the villa’s recreation – and of its owner. “My wife and I stayed there every year for more than 10 years,” he recalls. “I went one year, and Gianni didn’t seem interested in the garden, but I made some sketches. The next year, he took us to our bedroom, threw open the shutters and said, ‘Here’s your garden.’ And there it was. There were statues, fountains; the trees were very old, and their branches just trailed into the river.
“He was a genius in a way. We were good friends, but it was a private friendship. To me, he ranked among the shyest people I’ve met. We would just read and go for walks. He had wonderful collections, and it was a wonderful house. It really is the end of an era.”
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