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Onassis’ last house for sale

04 March 2014 / 14:03:46  GRReporter
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A property with a great history where many pages of the history of the Onassis family were written has been up for sale for a long time, but there are no buyers for it at present.

The estate with an area of ​​3.5 acres is located in one of the most expensive regions in Greece, namely the maritime suburb of Glyfada, near the famous golf course.

Until a few years ago, one of the Onassis family’s houses was located there too but the subsequent owner of the property had destroyed it, erasing many memories associated with the legendary Greek shipping magnate and billionaire.

His granddaughter Athena sold the estate about five years ago. Since then it has had two owners and today the brokerage agency for expensive properties Sotheby's International Realty is offering it for sale again.

According to the manager of the Greek branch of the agency, Panagiotis Farmakis, this is mainly due to the high price of the estate, which is 12.5 million euro or around 3.5 million euro per acre.

In his statements for the Sunday edition of Ethnos newspaper, he says that the property is located about five minutes away from the sea and it allows the building up of an area of ​​1,800 square metres, not counting the underground premises. The notice of the agency states that the buyer will receive as a gift a photo album of Aristotle Onassis and his family, which is unknown to the public.

Farmakis however states that foreigners and Greeks are showing interest in the property, attracted by both its history and its location in the most attractive part of Glyfada.

Its history is rich indeed. This is where Aristotle Onassis spent the last moments of his life before leaving for Paris, where he died at a local hospital in March 1975. The property with the house in Glyfada was actually the first real asset of the tycoon. He had bought it with the first money earned in Argentina, where he went after his father Sokratis lost the family property during the Greco-Turkish War in Asia Minor in 1919-1922. The house had been bought for Onassis’ stepmother Gesthimani Dologlu for whom his father had married after the death of his mother Pinelopi. However, Aristotle also lived there during his numerous trips to Athens.

Onassis died of severe myasthenia (morbid muscle weakness – editor’s note). Shortly before the end, he was at his house in Glyfada and refused to go to the American Hospital in Paris, saying, "I ​​will die here."

Here is what Dimitris Limberopoulous, a journalist and Onassis’ biographer, says about his last moments there, "I saw him for the last time in the garden of the house in Glyfada, when his son-in-law Konialidis (the husband of his sister Merope – editor’s note) accompanied him to the airport for his last trip to Paris. Before entering the limo, he stopped to take a breath; he was completely unrecognizable, stooping, tired, without glasses, with heavy and puffy eyes, and with grey hair. I whispered, "Captain." My voice was quiet, scared, filled with both regret and astonishment. He heard me, raised his head with difficulty and recognized me. "Limberopoule, man is a beast and does not easily give up his soul," he muttered. That was the last thing I heard from the most unappeasable beast that I had met in my journalistic career."

The house of memories sheltered many world famous personalities too. According to Limberopoulous, Aristotle had liked drinking ouzo on the threshold of the garden, near the large pots of flowers. The sea view had always reminded him of his hometown of Izmir and its port. It is argued that the house had been painted white upon Maria Callas’ request. The world-famous soprano had rehearsed there, playing the piano alone. Onassis’ second wife Jacqueline Kennedy had lived in the house as well.

Despite the rumours that his granddaughter Athena Onassis was planning to build a luxury villa on the site of the house where she would stay during her visits to Greece, along with her husband Alvaro Alfonso de Miranda Neto, she sold the property in 2007. The unknown buyer has resold it to someone who is looking for the next person wanting to become the owner of Aristotle Onassis’ property.

Tags: PeopleAristotle OnassisProperty in GlyfadaMaria CallasJacqueline KennedyAthena Onassis
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