"I have never had an evening like the one I had in Sardinia," Cherie Blair recalled of her 2004 trip with her husband to Silvio Berlusconi's villa in the Mediterranean.
"Fireworks lit up the words Viva Tony and we all sang Summertime together."
Two decades later Villa Certosa, the luxurious estate in Sardinia where the late Italian prime minister hosted heads of state, is up for sale.
Berlusconi's five children have agreed to put the property up for sale for €500 million (£428 million), according to a report in the Financial Times.
The Sardinian villa is reportedly being sold via Milan-based estate agents Dils with no public advertising — potential billionaire buyers will be contacted for viewings directly.
Along with the 68 rooms, a lagoon, and its own Grecian-style amphitheatre, the 110-hectare estate comes with a slice of turn-of-the-millennium history.
Berlusconi had bought the 68-room villa on the Costa Smeralda of Sardinia in the 1980s and refurbished it.
After taking office in 1994, he used Villa Certosa as a summer residence —and a base for entertaining his fellow world leaders.
At some point he added a grotto-style entrance to the villa from the sea, complete with a mosaic of Neptune, which he claimed was an important security measure for bringing in high profile visitors.
Then American president George W Bush also visited Berlusconi there, while Russian president Vladimir Putin made several trips to the villa in the Noughties.
Villa Certosa had a slightly more salubrious reputation that Berlusconi's Villa San Martino on the edge of Milan, where he reportedly held his infamous "bunga bunga" sex parties.
However, there was a minor scandal in 2009 when photographs emerged of Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek at Villa Certosa, naked and accompanied by topless women.
Rumours of Villa Certosa going up for sale surfaced in in 2010, which Berlusconi denied, and again in 2015 when the Saudi royal family are believed to have expressed interest in purchasing it.
Berlusconi died aged 86 in June 2023, leaving most of his £6 billion empire to his five children — Marina, Pier Silvio, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi Berlusconi — in his will.
The former prime minister also left a reported €100million ( £85 million) to his girlfriend Marta Fascina, now aged 34.
Villa Certosa isn't the only Italian estate with high profile connections to come to market recently. The Gucci heirs have put their Rome estate with two villas on the market for £13 million.
