old news now but still very interesting

This past week, it became known that SKORPIOS has actually been sold. It has been many years since the media has speculated about the "impending" or the allegedly impending sale of the famous island, bought by Aristotle Onassis, and on which he married the former First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. SKORPIOS was inherited by Athina, the granddaughter and sole descendant Aristotle Onassis, upon the death of her mother, Christina, in 1988. In 2003, Athina turned 18 and assumed control of the patrimony which had been under the administration of Onassis Foundation trustees, her father, and then KPMG Fides after the Greek "greybeard" trustees and her father couldn't reconcile their differences. Athina never quite felt comfortable visiting SKORPIOS. People close to her said that she intensely disliked the attention she would inevitably attract whenever she set foot on Greek soil. She also understandably had antipathy toward the Greek associations of the island, in particular the trustees of her patrimony who never really accepted her as she is, and who have in effect denied her of what she regards as her right to be President of the Onassis Foundation. Furthermore, Athina was upset that the Greek government denied her husband Doda's application for Greek citizenship. She probably blames the considerable influence of the Onassis board members for this. In any case, she appears to have successfully freed herself from the cumbersome responsibility of maintaining an island she never felt comfortable on anyway. But it wasn't Madonna or Bill Gates or even Roman Abramovich who got the legendary Ionian paradise. It was, in fact, the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani.

And she got a fair price for it too!!!! $190 million to be exact.

Some years ago, Athina had sold off the Onassis villa in the Athenian suburb of Glyfada too. And don't forget that Aristotle's fabulous apartment in Paris was sold, along with Christina's St. Moritz chalet. And there were the jewels, sold off in an auction at Christie's, London.

Before Athina assumed control of her inheritance, two other important properties were shed from her portfolio. These were the Olympic Tower in Manhattan (sold to the Foundation) and the Metropole Hotel in Monaco.

Athina clearly doesn't want these haunted remnants of the gilded age of her grandfather's grandeur. It remains to be seen whether or not she will continue to represent Greece in her jumping career. Or whether she will keep the Onassis name. She is apparently poised to represent Greece at the World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky later this year, and it has been reported that she intends to represent Greece at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

But she doesn't live in Greece. She makes her home in Belgium, where she recently a bought a house in a suburb of Antwerp, and divides time between her husband's native Brazil and her equestrian property in the Netherlands. Her trainer is Jean-Maurice Bonneau, a Frenchman who succeeded the great Nelson Pessoa (Doda's longtime menter and father figure) last year.