It’s hard to imagine, but the site of this extraordinary estate, with its sprawling gardens and fountains, was an entirely undeveloped piece of craggy hillside when Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, recently divorced and heiress of one of Europe’s greatest family fortunes, first set eyes on it. It was 1905 and Béatrice had recently come into a sizable inheritance from her late father, Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, a banker and renowned art collector. The estate agent who had guided her and a small entourage up the narrow mule track to the promontory mentioned, ever so casually, that the owner of the neighboring plot, King Léopold II of Belgium, was also keenly interested in the property…. “I’ll take it,” she announced.
The project marked a new beginning for Béatrice, whose 21-year marriage…