Rich men’s playgrounds

Real estate has always been a business full of powerful personalities. But can one person ­create – or recreate – an entire luxury property market? Looking at the cases of Marbella, Belgravia, Bel Air and Monaco, it would seem so.

Marbella and Prince Alfonso zu Hohenlohe

Until the 1940s Marbella was nothing but a village of 900 inhabitants on the Spanish coast. That all changed when, according to legend, a German prince’s coal-powered Rolls-Royce broke down there. Prince Alfonso zu Hohenlohe fell in love with the place and decided to stay.

Born into one of the oldest noble families in Europe (he was godson to the king of Spain), Hohenlohe was a successful businessman and notorious playboy, fluent in five languages and skilled at sports such as rally-driving and tennis. After his fateful stop in Marbella he decided in 1947 to build a grand private residence there – the Finca Santa Margarita, with traditional whitewashed walls, red-tiled roofs, charming patios and terraces and wonderful, sprawling gardens with fountains, thousands of old trees and manicured lawns. There he played host to a constant flow of glamorous visitors with names such as Bismarck, Metternich and Thyssen, many of whom eventually bought adjacent plots to build their own homes.

But Hohenlohe had even grander plans. In 1954 he sold his own home (to his friends the Rothschilds) and used other parts of the estate to build the famous Marbella Club, which quickly became synonymous with Europe’s mid-century elite “jet set” lifestyle. (Indeed Hohenlohe was often credited with having “invented” the jet set.) Regular guests included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Formula 1 driver James Hunt, photographer Patrick Litchfield, actors Sophia Loren and Sean Connery and many others.

Soon the former village was a fully fledged international resort, with Hohenlohe still a driving force. As head of the Costa del Sol Promoters’ Co-operative, he successfully lobbied for improvements to roads, airports and water supplies in the region. He continued to run the Marbella club and eventually set up another estate, not far away in the hills near Ronda, where he planted Bordeaux grapes and produced his own award-winning wine under the “Principe Alfonso” label.

By the late 1970s, however, Hohenlohe had become disenchanted with Marbella’s move toward mass tourism and so he sold the club to a consortium of Arab businessmen. Yet he was still proud of his accomplishments and in 2003, only days before his death, he accepted a medal for merit in tourism from the Spanish government.

One of Hohenlohe’s famous quips was: “I have lived in castles, in Venetian palaces and the world’s finest hotels. I have watched the sun rise over the beaches of five continents and I have looked into the eyes of the most beautiful women of the universe.”

The latter group included Princess Ira von Fürstenberg, a Fiat heiress whom he married when she was 15, actresses Ava Gardner and Kim Novak, with whom he had affairs, and actress Jackie Lane, whom he married in 1970. But his greatest love was probably Marbella.

Bel Air and Alphonzo Bell Sr

Los Angelenos describe the three neighbourhoods of Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Bel Air as the “golden triangle”. Beverly Hills started out as a dry oil well of the Amalgamated Oil Company; Holmby Hills was founded by wealthy retailer Arthur Letts Sr. And Bel Air, on the west side of the city, was the brainchild of Alphonzo E. Bell Sr.

Bell was born in 1875 into a family of entrepreneurs; his father created Bell Station Ranch, now the City of Bell, in Santa Fe Springs, while his uncle was Ed Hollenbeck, founder of the First National Bank and a driving force behind the creation of LA’s first public transportation system. Alphonzo first found fame as a champion tennis player, winning bronze and silver medals at the 1904 summer Olympic games, then went on to become a successful gentleman farmer in Santa Fe Springs.

But his life changed dramatically in the early 1920s after oil was discovered on his land. The profits allowed him to buy a 4,500-acre ranch in the LA area, the Danzinger Estate, complete with a Spanish-style mansion. Inspired by the views from this house, he realised he could use the land to create a magnificent, upscale community. And the idea for Bel Air was born.

Engineer Wilkie Woodward planned the houses and roads, while landscape architect Aurele Vermeulen co-ordinated the plantings. Bel Air officially opened on more than 600 acres in October 1922 and was a success right from the start, thanks in part to the growth of Hollywood. Huge iron gates marked the entrance to the new community and uniformed guards checked in visitors, a novelty at the time. Bell built a sales and development centre in Stone Canyon and worked in an office that is today a large suite at the Hotel Bel Air. He also built the elegant Bel Air Beach Club in Santa Monica and the Bel Air Country Club in 1924. Land purchasers in Bel Air were required to spend a minimum of $20,000 on home construction and most early residents built in Spanish-Mediterranean style. Nowadays, the community’s architecture ranges from classic Californian to mid-century modern and contemporary. The neighbourhood has become one of the most exclusive in LA, with notable residents including the late US President Ronald Reagan.