Belgravia and Richard Grosvenor

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Author: Alexander Kraft

The UK’s Grosvenor family, currently headed by the 6th Duke of Westminster, dates back to the Middle Ages. But it owes its first title to Richard Grosvenor â€" an Oxford graduate and member of Parliament from Cheshire who was knighted in 1617 and made a baronet in 1621 â€" and its immense fortune to Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd baronet â€" who in 1677 married Mary Davies, heiress to 300 acres of land on the outskirts of London. As the city grew, the land quickly became prime real estate, laying the foundation for even more wealth and more titles. Today, 500 roads, squares and buildings bear the names of titles, people and places associated with the family and the Grosvenor Group has billions of pounds worth of real estate under management.

The first neighbourhood the Grosvenors developed, in the 17th and 18th centuries, was Mayfair. But by the time Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, became head of the family work there was mostly complete. So he turned to another area he owned: a rural swamp south-west of Buckingham Palace known as the “five fields” and the “lagoon of the Thames”.

In 1826 a special act of parliament was passed, empowering Lord Grosvenor to drain the site. He did and then commissioned master builder Thomas Cubitt, who would later be responsible for the east front of Buckingham Palace, to lay out the new neighbourhood, Belgravia. Cubitt was chosen for the quality of his work â€" unlike other builders at the time, who used sub-contractors, he employed his own large staff â€" and the classic white stucco houses around Eaton Square and Belgrave Square that he built are still coveted.

Grosvenor himself continued to live in Mayfair, in Old Grosvenor House, on Upper Grosvenor Street, overlooking Hyde Park, which was eventually demolished in 1927. But there’s no question that building Belgravia was his legacy.

Monaco and Aristotle Onassis

Monaco has been ruled as a constitutional monarchy by the Grimaldi family â€" originally from Genoa in Italy â€" since 1297, when François Grimaldi disguised himself as a monk and seized it. By the middle of the 19th century the 495-acre micro-state had developed into a renowned seaside resort with its own casino but, after the second world war, it was in crisis. The upper classes that had frequented its clubs and beaches before the war emigrated or lost their money. The resort’s beautiful belle Ă©poque buildings began to crumble. Its swimming pools had no water and it was rumoured that the income from the casino barely covered the electricity bill for its chandeliers. Of course there were still people living there, including old European aristocrats and international businessmen taking advantage of the tax-free regime, but it was a far cry from its heydey. This changed when “Ari” Onassis arrived in the early 1950s. Born in 1906, a member of the poor Greek minority in Smyrna, Turkey, Onassis and his family had to flee for Greece during the Turkish civil war. He then emigrated at the age of 16 to Argentina, where he laid the foundation for his fortune by selling Turkish tobacco and investing the proceeds in several old tankers, which would soon be carrying Allied war materials across the Atlantic. After the war Onassis began building the first supertankers and was soon dubbed the “tanker king”. His fortune grew to a then-almost unimaginable sum of $1bn.

In 1954 he moved to Monaco for the tax advantages and fell in love with it in spite of its postwar malaise. In fact, he saw an investment opportunity and acquired a 52 per cent stake in the Société des Bains de Mer, which owned major parts of Monaco, including the Hotel de Paris, the Hotel Hermitage, the casino, the opera, restaurants, bars and land, for the unbelievably paltry sum of $1.5m. He subsequently put more money into renovation and restoration of the properties and encouraged the construction of the high-rise apartment buildings that now dominate the landscape. Monaco’s fortunes began to turn and, in the aftermath of Prince Rainier’s fairy-tale wedding to Grace Kelly, it was again a hotspot for the international rich and famous.

Onassis himself usually lived and held court in the Hôtel de Paris and also stayed at the legendary Château de la Croë, now owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, at Cap d’Antibes. But his real home was the Christina, a sleek, 325ft, shimmering-white yacht named after his daughter.

Rainier and Onassis later had a rather dramatic falling out, disagreeing on their visions for Monaco’s future and engaging in a fierce legal battle, which Rainier eventually won. As a result, Onassis’s legacy in Monaco is now just a faint memory. But his impact was undeniable.

Alexander Kraft, is chairman and chief executive of Sotheby’s International Realty in France and Monoco. This article is based on extracts from his book “Living in Luxury â€" Inside the World’s Most Glamorous Homes” (Thames & Hudson, ÂŁ29.95)

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