Silvio Berlusconi’s heirs have reportedly found a buyer for Villa Certosa, the late Italian prime minister’s spectacular and scandal-soaked Sardinian estate. The sprawling Costa Smeralda compound has been sold to a company linked to Qatar’s ruling family for around €350 million, or roughly $395 million.
The buyer is reportedly Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al Thani’s Constellation Hotels Holding Ltd., a Luxembourg-registered company tied to the Al Thani family. Fininvest, the Berlusconi family holding company, confirmed that one of its subsidiaries had accepted a binding offer from a foreign buyer for the estate, though it did not officially name the purchaser or disclose the price.
And this was no ordinary beachfront mansion.
Villa Certosa is one of the most famous private homes in Europe. It spans roughly 300 acres near Porto Rotondo, in Sardinia’s ultra-exclusive Costa Smeralda region. The estate reportedly includes the main villa and outbuildings with around 126 rooms, multiple swimming pools, vast gardens, man-made lakes, an amphitheater, a massive cactus collection, a fake volcano that can erupt on command, and a James Bond-style underground grotto where small boats can dock discreetly out of sight.
It was exactly the sort of over-the-top billionaire playground one would expect from Silvio Berlusconi.
Berlusconi, who died in 2023 at age 86, was one of the most colorful and controversial figures in modern European history. He built a media empire, became one of Italy’s richest people, served multiple terms as prime minister, owned AC Milan during its glory years, and spent decades blurring the lines between politics, business, celebrity and personal excess.
Villa Certosa was where all of those identities converged.
Over the years, Berlusconi used the estate to host presidents, prime ministers, billionaires, celebrities and political allies. Vladimir Putin visited. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair vacationed there with his wife, Cherie. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was photographed there in 2008. Putin’s daughters were reportedly guests at the property in 2002.
But the estate was also inseparable from the more infamous side of Berlusconi’s public image. Villa Certosa was widely reported to have hosted some of his notorious “bunga bunga” parties, with young women flown in for events that later became a central part of the scandals surrounding his private life.
In 2009, the Spanish newspaper “El País” published photographs taken at the estate, including images that turned the villa into a global tabloid spectacle. One of the most widely discussed photos showed former Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek nude near one of the pools. Below are two drone videos of the villa. Unfortunately, I could not find any licensable photos of the interior:
For years, Villa Certosa was rumored to be on the verge of being sold. Potential buyers were said to include Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Saudi investors. In August 2025, Fininvest confirmed that it had received several expressions of interest in the property, while insisting there were no advanced negotiations at the time. Around then, Italian media floated a possible valuation of as much as €500 million, or roughly $584 million.
The final reported sale price, around $395 million, is still an extraordinary number. But it is also roughly $190 million below that high-end valuation.
Even at the lower number, Villa Certosa instantly joins the ranks of the most expensive private residential estate deals in the world. It also fits a familiar pattern among global trophy properties: a legendary seller, a one-of-a-kind compound, a politically connected buyer, and a price tag that would be almost impossible to justify using normal real estate math.
For Berlusconi’s five children, the sale appears to be part of a broader effort to rationalize the vast property portfolio their father left behind. Berlusconi’s estate included media assets, investments, residences and other holdings accumulated over a lifetime of dealmaking, politics and showmanship.
Among the assets Berlusconi left behind, Villa Certosa carried a unique public charge. It was the physical backdrop for his billionaire persona: the place where presidents, prime ministers, oligarchs, celebrities and political allies came to orbit around his money, power and appetite for spectacle. The fake volcano and secret boat grotto were absurd details, but they also captured the point. Berlusconi built Villa Certosa as a private resort, a diplomatic salon and a theater for the mythology he spent his life creating.
That mythology now belongs to someone else.
For a reported $395 million, a company linked to Qatar’s ruling family is buying 300 acres of Sardinian coastline, 126 rooms, swimming pools, gardens, an amphitheater, a fake volcano, a hidden boat grotto and decades of scandal-soaked history. In the world of billionaire trophy properties, very few homes come with a backstory this rich, strange or notorious.
