Villa Certosa
Costa Smeralda, Italy. Unbranded. A hundred and twenty-six rooms, a state security decree, and a sale thirty per cent under the ask.
The only record in this register whose security status was set by statute. Villa Certosa was designated by government decree an alternative location of maximum security for the Italian prime minister, with state secrecy protections — a private house that became a piece of national infrastructure because of who slept in it. It hosted George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin.
The chain reads as a correction in three moves. Valued at €260 million in 2021. Marketed from 2025 at €500 million through Sotheby's with Knight Castle — and one source close to the sale told the Financial Times the asking price was above what the family expected to get, which is a rare published admission that an ask is a position rather than a value. A binding offer accepted in June 2026 at about €350 million, roughly USD 395 million, from Constellation Hotels Holding, a Luxembourg company linked to the Al Thani family of Qatar. Thirty per cent under the ask, thirty-five per cent over the valuation.
The estate itself: 126 rooms over about 4,500 square metres, four bungalows around an artificial volcano, a Roman amphitheatre, a Poseidon pool, a private sea grotto with boat access, a helipad, an underground bunker, and a 297-square-metre medicinal garden. The site area is published four ways — 110 hectares, 120 hectares, about 300 acres and 2,800 acres — and the register carries all four. Planning material is reported to point at five-star hospitality use, and the buyer is linked to the Maybourne group; if that happens this record's own type changes, and the register will carry the change rather than rewrite the history.
Who it is not for
Not for anyone: it is sold, and the register holds it because the transactions and the decree are public. Not for a reader treating €500 million as the value — the market answered at €350 million and the seller's own side said the ask was high.
Sources
- Villa Certosa reference record — purchase from Flavio Carboni, renaming from Villa Monastero, Gianni Gamondi design, binding offer June 2026 at about €350m
- Celebrity Net Worth, 25 June 2026 — about €350m / USD 395m, buyer reported as Constellation Hotels Holding Ltd
- Financial Times via ilmessaggero.it, 2 February 2024 — €500m ask, €260m valuation in 2021, 110 ha, 126 rooms, 4,500 sqm, ask above expectation
- Travel Tomorrow, 14 September 2025 — Sotheby's International Realty with Knight Castle
- Time Out, 17 September 2025 — government decree, maximum-security designation, state secrecy
- thesardiniaguide.com, 25 June 2026 — 120 ha / 297 acres, Maybourne link, five-star hospitality in planning material
- Fininvest confirmed a binding offer without naming the buyer or the price
Verification
- Official source
- Checked
- Inventory
- From official source
- Sources disagree
- site given as 110 ha, 120 ha, about 300 acres and 2,800 acres; purchase year 1980 and late 1980s; seller named as Flavio Carboni and as Gianni Onorato
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
- —
Booking
Private Residences records addresses; it does not broker them. Enquiries are passed to the party named in the record, and nothing on this site is an offer.
Make an enquiryClassified by The Resort Collection House · Edition 2026 · PR-D-194