Headstrong and unconventional, Baron Edmond de Rothschild was one of the world’s great financiers, writes Derek Wilson in London
Informality, boundless enthusiasm, and a full measure of the family’s financial flair were typical of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the richest of the Rothschilds, who has died aged 71. When he greeted me on the wide steps leading down from the magnificent frontage of the Chateau de Pregny overlooking Lake Geneva, he grimaced at the sight of a departing cavalcade of limousines and muttered, “Boring international bankers.” Inside, in his spacious office, he seated me behind his Louis XV desk (“You’ll find it easier to take notes there”) while he sprawled on a sofa.
To be born a member of the great banking family did not, however, automatically convey the keys to fame and fortune. His father, Maurice, the black sheep of the family, was expelled in the 1920s from the family’s Paris bank, Rothschild Frres, for his playboy lifestyle and unwise stock- market speculations. Soon afterwards, he was divorced from his wife, Noemie, and when Hitler invaded France, mother and son fled into Switzerland hoping for refuge at de Pregny. But they found the mansion closed and Maurice, a vigorous opponent of the Vichy regime, fled to America. They spent the duration in a small house on the estate.
After the war, Edmond, like his father, went in for speculative investment. He had to borrow capital, and taught himself to read a balance sheet. There were successes and failures, but rather more of the former, and his office on the Faubourg St Hnor soon rivalled that of his cousins in Rue Laffitte. The death, in 1957, of his father came at the right time. Maurice’s investment in shares and antiques organised from New York and, after 1945, from Geneva, had made him the wealthiest of the Rothschilds. These garnered resources were now Edmond’s.
Edmond spread himself in many directions – a banque prive, Club Mediterrane, construction and toy companies, and pioneering development in Israel. Edmond’s grandfather was revered as the “founder of the Jewish nation” because of his support for early Palestinian colonisation, and Edmond eagerly took up the Zionist torch. He founded the Israel General Bank and equipped the new state with oil terminals and chemical plants.
Edmond was just as unconventional and headstrong in his private life. His first marriage was not two years old when he met a 28-year-old actress, Nadine Lhopitalier, a nude stand-in for film stars. They were married in 1963 and Nadine became the chatelaine of 10 homes, and the hostess of lavish parties.
In 1972 Edmond entered that other sphere that has made the name “Rothschild” so famous; he bought a Bordeaux vineyard. With typical ebullience Edmond transformed Chteau Clarke and enlarged it until it became the second largest Medoc estate. He replanted, re-equipped and even rivalled his cousin Philippe’s marketing methods by introducing the Savour Club, the first mail-order wine service.
At Chteau Clarke he built a study, library complex, panelled in inlaid oak from an Italian Renaissance palazzo, and filled the shelves with every available book on Bordeaux viniculture. Pregny housed a celebrated collection of Renaissance bijouterie as well as some of the finest examples of French furniture and Dutch paintings. He is succeeded by his son Benjamin.
Baron Edmond Adolphe Maurice Jules Jacque de Rothschild, financier, born 1926; died November 3 1997