Aristotle Onassis heir sells private island to Russian oligarch's daughter

Helena Smith in Athens The Guardian, Tuesday 16 April 2013 19.16 BST

Athina Onassis sells Skorpios, where grandfather married Jackie Kennedy, as Greek economic crisis leads to soaring costs

Skorpios island, bought by the Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis in 1962. Photograph: Manolis Patakakis/EPA

It was the ultimate symbol of status and celebrity for Greece's most famous dynasty – a private island playground for the legendary shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis and the location of his wedding to Jackie Kennedy.

But soaring taxes and maintenance costs – largely as a result of the Greek economic crisis – have prompted Athina Onassis, heir to the oil tanker and business empire built by her grandfather and the sole surviving inheritor of one of the world's biggest shipping fortunes, to sell the family's private island, Skorpios, to the daughter of a Russian oligarch.

Ekaterina Rybolovleva, whose father has substantial shares in the Bank of Cyprus, has picked up the idyllic isle for €117m — and in effect cut the last remaining ties of the House of Onassis with Greece.

"This is the end of an era, the end of the Onassis myth as Greeks have known it," said Alexis Mantheakis, author of the biography Athina Onassis: In the Eye of the Storm. "Skorpios was the iconic symbol of the Onassis legend and family."

Athina Onassis in São Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Fernanda Calfat/Getty Images

Purchased by the late magnate in 1962 for 3.5m drachmas – the equivalent of $10,000 – the Ionian isle was where Onassis entertained his opera singer lover Maria Callas. It was also the setting for the tycoon's marriage to Jackie Kennedy in 1968 and the location of lavish parties that helped give birth to the concept of celebrity.

Establishing the rich man's trend of owning island paradises, the tycoon shipped hundreds of plants and trees to the isle, turning it from a barren outcrop into a green resort almost overnight. Sand was also transported to create his own private beach.

Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, and the pop star Madonna had both sought to buy the isle in the past.

An avid equestrian, now based mostly in Brazil, the 28-year-old Onassis heir is only known to have visited the island once, to pay her respects at the tomb of her mother Christina, who died of a drugs overdose and is buried on Skorpios along with her grandfather and uncle Alexandros.

"The last time she was there was in November 1998 to attend her mother's 10-year memorial," said Mantheakis, a former adviser to her French father, Thierry Roussel. "The three of us spent the night there but after that she never went back again."

Another view of Skorpios island. Photograph: Manolis Patakakis/EPA

The young Onassis is believed to have paid around €35m in inheritance taxes and maintenance costs since being given the isle. Hefty levies slapped on real estate by the Greek government in a bid to reduce the country's debt pile are also thought to have contributed to her decision to sell.

Athina came into her wealth at the age of 21. Her fabled fortune included hundreds of priceless works of art, a fleet of ships, properties and companies spanning three continents.

If she wanted to, she could dip into her 217 bank accounts to pay off the debts of most third world countries and still live comfortably. Although once known as the "poor little rich girl", the heir in recent years has also sold off a considerable number of Greek assets. To the surprise of friends and family, she recently auctioned the entire collection of her mother's jewellery and a plot of land on the Athenian Riviera where the dynasty's ancestral home once stood.

"In one sense she has been a true Onassis in being totally unsentimental about financial matters," said Mantheakis. "From what I know, all her cash is still in a trust formed by her father, which may also explain why she is selling assets."

While partly attributed to the Greek crisis, her decision to distance herself from her roots may also have as much to do with the notoriously bad relations she has with officials who run the Onassis Foundation – the other half of her grandfather's legendary estate in Athens.

A charitable organisation bequeathed by the shipowner to commemorate his son Alexandros, who died in a plane crash, the foundation cut ties with Athina after its board of trustees criticised her lack of spoken Greek and poor knowledge of the country and its customs. She was raised speaking Swedish to her stepmother and French to her father Roussel, the heir to a pharmaceutical empire.

Famously reclusive, the heir has remained tight-lipped about the latest sale. But 24-year-old Rybolovleva, whose father Dmitry is the owner of the AS Monaco football club and has a history of snapping up trophy properties, says she regards her latest prized possession, which also includes the adjacent islet of Sparti, "as a long-term financial investment". A spokesman for the Harvard-trained Russian said she saw "significant potential for further improvement of the islands using environmentally friendly technology".

That, at least, has been music to the ears of locals now ruing the demise of the Onassis dynasty in Greece. "None of us know what tomorrow will bring," said Gerasimos Staurakis, a taverna owner on the nearby island of Lefkada who once worked on Onassis's super yacht Christina.

"We are all praying that we will eat a crumb or two … Onassis was a wonderful man and we would have liked other Onassises to be like him, but unfortunately that hasn't been the case."

• This article was amended on 17 April 2013. The original version wrongly stated that Alexandros Onassis died in a helicopter crash, instead of a plane crash, and that Athina Onassis came into her wealth aged 18 instead of 21.

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