Carlos de Beistegui

Don Carlos de Beistegui y de Yturbe (1895 – 17 January 1970), also known as Charles or Charlie de Beistegui, was an eccentric multi-millionaire art collector and interior decorator and one of the most flamboyant characters of mid-20th-century European life. His ball at the Palazzo Labia in Venice in 1951 is still described as "the party of the century". He was often referred to as "The Count of Monte Cristo".

He is not to be confused with his namesake uncle (1863–1953), whose collection of notable 18th- and 19th-century paintings was donated to the Louvre.

Beistegui's origins are Mexican and Spanish. He was born the heir to a huge Mexican fortune, to parents of Basque origin, and a mother (Dolores de Yturbe), both of whose ancestors had migrated to Mexico in the 18th century. The family made its fortune there in silver, agriculture, and real estate but left Mexico after the execution of Emperor Maximilian in 1867. Beistegui was, however, born in France, to Mexican parents, and travelled under a Spanish diplomatic passport. He was brought up in France, Spain and England, and only ever visited Mexico twice, briefly. His family members held diplomatic posts representing Mexico in the U.K., France, Spain, and Russia. He studied at Eton, where he wrote a volume of poetry he illustrated with his own drawings. He was about to attend Cambridge when World War I broke out. He then joined his parents in their mansion on the esplanade of Les Invalides in Paris.

In the early 1930s, he had a penthouse built on the Champs-Élysées, designed by Le Corbusier. It included an electronically operated hedge that parted to reveal a view of the Arc de Triomphe, and a roof terrace designed by Salvador Dalí.

In 1939 he acquired the Château de Groussay, at Montfort-l'Amaury (Yvelines), and spent the next 30 years improving its interiors and grounds and expanding the structure by adding extra wings. These included a 150-seat theatre, inspired by the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, one of the most beautiful extant theatres in Europe. He hired Emilio Terry to undertake the interior design. He had huge copies of the world's great paintings installed, but often claimed they were the originals (for example he claimed that Hans Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII owned by the British Royal Family was a fake, and his was the original.) He commissioned Spanish weavers to create tapestries in the style of Goya. He had giant Chinese jars which looked authentic but were actually made of tin or plaster. But he had an enormous number of genuine pieces, such as an ebony and bronze Louis XVI desk once owned by Paderewski. The furnishings were described as the greatest private interiors concocted in the 20th century. The house was admired by decorators such as David Nightingale Hicks and Mark Hampton, who called it the most beautiful house in the world. One of the rooms so impressed Cecil Beaton that he used it as the model for Henry Higgins' library in My Fair Lady. The Château de Groussay was the scene of some of the grandest weekend parties of the 20th century. The gardens have been classified by the French government as one of the Remarkable Gardens of France.

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