WELCOME US TO THEIR HOME – A FORMER MONASTERY NEAR VERONA
PRODUCTION & INTERVIEW: NANA BOTTAZZI PHOTOS: MATTIA BETTINELLI CLOTHES: DIOR, ERMANNO SCERVINO & SILVIA TCHERASSI JEWELLERY: ROBERTO COIN MAKE-UP: LILIANA ROSETTA
W hat the tiny Alpine state of Liechtenstein lacks in size, it more than makes up for in talent – especially for business and finance. And its royal dynasty is at the heart of that success.
Prince Hans-Adam II heads not only the reigning family, but also LGT, the country’s largest bank. His nephew, Prince Alexander, and Alexander’s wife, German-born Princess Astrid, are an entrepreneurial force in their own right, with interests in technology, pharmaceuticals and furnishings.
Under the banner Crown Designs, Astrid creates luxury interiors for boutiques, hotels and residences, deploying skills that are also much in evidence in the couple’s very own splendid home in Italy. A 1,000-year-old former Benedictine monastery near Verona, it is set in a huge park filled with ancient trees, in the hills overlooking Lake Garda.
Inside, Villa Sant’Andrea has been renovated to provide the perfect setting for the treasured painting and porcelain collections started by Astrid’s mother. The passion for beautiful homes has now reached a third generation, with Astrid’s own daughter Princess Theodora, 18, immersed in studying architecture at Cambridge.
Prince Alexander, your family goes back more than a millennium…
“Exactly, that’s when the name Liechtenstein was first mentioned. The family appeared around that time. These days, we have more than 100 relatives at our reunions.”
What does the family business consist of?
“For a long time, we owned properties in the north of Austria and what is now the Czech Republic, but we lost them after the world wars, which meant we lost that source of income. So in 1921 we founded a bank, which has become the largest bank in Liechtenstein and one of the most important in the world for wealth management. We’ve made a lot of investments in different sectors, structuring everything around a foundation so the assets can be passed from generation to generation.”
Where did you grow up?
“My mother is French, and I grew up in France until I started sixth form. I then studied in Lausanne, Brussels and Paris, where I later worked for a multinational c
