Houston’s Palace With a Party Past!

Houston’s Palace With a Party Past!

Houston's Palace With a Party Past!

Must SeeTop 10 Florida Condos For Sale

In the Houston neighborhood of River Oaks that was designed for the mega wealthy in the 1920s and has stayed that way through today, there is one mansion that holds many memories for old time Houstonians who moved in that circle of high society.

The legend of Texas oil wildcatter Hugh Roy Cullen has become a permanent part of Texas oil lore. He was a young man down on his luck when he figured out that access to oil was more likely if one drilled on the outside of the telltale salt domes instead of drilling directly into them, and that one had to drill a lot deeper than was the accepted protocol of the time. He was right on both counts, and with hard labor of his own and the help of hired men, he broke the barrier to production and became a very wealthy man.

One of his children, Lillie, married Baron Paolo di Portanova of Italy. They had two sons, Enrico and Ugo, who came to Houston from Rome in the early 1960s to claim their inheritance from their grandfather, Cullen. They sued the Houston Cullen family in what was said to be one of the largest estate court cases in U.S. history.

Having won an income from the Cullen estate of $1.2 million a month and with a new net worth of around $50 million and lucrative investments, Enrico di Portanova, by then a baron, married his second wife Sandra Hovas of Houston, who promptly took on the trappings of a baroness and the name to go with her new station, Baroness Alessandra di Portanova. Enrico had homes in Rome and Palm Springs and an Acapulco estate of 40,000 square feet that was seen in the James Bond movie License To Kill. He also owned two Maseratis, a Lamborghini, a Rolls Royce, airplane and speedboat. He employed secretaries, butlers and pilots and lost $150,000 in one night of gambling in Monte Carlo. Enrico also took temporary control of Ugo’s fortune who was rewriting the bible and soon declared mentally incompetent.

In the 1970s, Enrico and Sandra bought a grand mansion in River Oaks and made it their Texas home. When a planned birthday present for Sandra of a $13 million share in New York’s 21 Club fell through, Enrico put that money into enclosing the home’s huge courtyard with a greenhouse roof, from which hung multiple, extravagant chandeliers over the swimming pool. A Houston party palace was born with the elaborate air conditioned enclosure.

The rich and famous came in droves to the parties, including Sir Roger Moore, then starring as James Bond, who arrived by helicopter. Everything was an extravaganza with the di Portanovas. Food, wine and liquor flowed and with a penchant for cooking, Enrico would sometimes serve his specialty, caviar tossed with tagliolini, to his guests. There was no doubt that all who attended had a grand time as the parties are still talked about today.

With Enrico’s death in 2000, the elaborate mansion was sold and the high life ended. Now having undergone a facelift and updating, it is on the market.

At 21,500 square feet, the Neo-Classical mansion is awash with marble, Venetian plaster walls and elaborate moldings with gold accents along with the obligatory marble spiraling staircase in the foyer. Built in 1968, the home has eight bedrooms and twelve baths, mahogany-paneled library, gourmet kitchen, gym with spa and home theater. Its crowning glory, however, is the lavish 12,000-square-foot party space, including the original swimming pool chandeliers, which can also be viewed from a balcony off the master suite.

Sun, sex, spaghetti, parties and beautiful homes were the calling card of Houston’s most notorious party boy - paid for by granddad’s ingenuity and struggles. Now for sale, the Baron Enrico di Portanova’s elegant River Oaks mansion priced at $17.9 million.

Source: www.johndaugherty.com