Enormous £365m 130-room mansion is one of the world’s biggest – but is shrouded in secrecy | World | News
Safra Mansion in Brazil is one of the largest estates (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
The massive 130-room, £306 million mansion is shrouded in secrecy despite being one of the largest residential properties in the world. Built in the 1990s, Mansao Safra, which means Safra Mansion, is the 11th largest residence in the world.
Located in southern Sao Paulo, Brazil, the massive estate is larger than the size of the White House and twice the size of Alvorada Palace, the home of Brazil’s president. It covers a huge area of 22,000 square meters and has a construction area of more than 11,000 square meters.
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Mansao Safra has his own Olympic pool (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Originally built by banker Joseph Safra, the mansion consists of five floors, three of which are underground, and more than 130 rooms connected by nine elevators. At the time it was worth around £8 million.
Although the value of the mansion has increased rapidly over the years in proportion to the wealth of the Safra family. According to Forbes magazine, Joseph’s widow Vicky’s net worth is said to be around £19.5 billion.
The architecture of the huge mansion was designed by Frenchman Alain Raynaud, inspired by the Palace of Versailles. The interior is kept under absolute secrecy, with very few people said to have visited the property.
According to Click Petroleo e GasThe mansion was designed as a tribute to the noble palaces of Rome. The facility has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, helipad, seven family suites and a reinforced security system.
The mansion is located in Sao Paulo (Image: Getty)
Estimates believe the property’s energy consumption would be enough to power a town of 2,000 people. The building’s original owner, Joseph, was born in Lebanon in 1938, but emigrated to Brazil when he was a teenager.
At one point, he was the 52nd richest person in the world and the richest man in Brazil, according to Forbes. This is thanks to Safra Group, a banking and financial institution operating in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean.
Joseph died in 2020 at the age of 82, leaving his fortune, including the Safra Estate, to Vicky and her children. His death made him the second richest Brazilian after Facebook co-founder Eduardo Savrin.
Vicky, 73, married Joseph at 17 and began a family partnership that would see Safra Group become a financial giant. It started in Syria, but it actually started to gain momentum in Brazil.
Banco Safra began operations in 1972 and became one of the largest financial institutions in Brazil. Meanwhile, Vicky and Joseph continued to share four children and 14 grandchildren together.
Vicky currently runs the Vicky and Joseph Safra Charitable Foundation, which supports projects in health, education, arts and culture, and expands the social impact of financial legacies.
