Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Prince Alfonso Maximiliano Victorio Eugenio Alejandro María Pablo de la Santísima Trinidad y Todos los Santos zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (28 May 1924 – 21 December 2003) was a businessman known for his promotion of the Spanish resorts of Marbella and the Costa del Sol. He also founded the Marbella Club Hotel.

Background

He was born in Madrid, the eldest son of Prince Maximilian Egon zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1897–1968) and his wife, María de la Piedad de Yturbe y von Scholtz-Hermensdorff, Marquesa de Belvís de las Navas (known as Piedita) (1892–1990) daughter of Manuel Adrián de Yturbe y del Villar, Mexican ambassador to St. Petersburg, Vienna, Paris and Madrid, and María de la Trinidad von Scholtz-Hermensdorff y Caravaca, Marquesa de Belvís de las Navas. Hohenlohe came, on his father's side, from a family which traced its history to the twelfth century and were reigning Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in Württemberg until Napoleon I's invasion. His mother Piedad was Marquesa de Belvís de las Navas, granddaughter of Francisco-María de Yturbe, Mexican Minister of Finance, of Basque origin. King Alfonso XIII of Spain was his godfather at a christening in the royal palace.

Alfonso had five siblings, Maria Francesca (known as Pimpinella, his eldest sister, Marquesa de Belvís de las Navas), Alfonso, Christian, Elisabeth, Max Emanuel and Beatrice (known as Teñu).

The hereditary wealth of the Hohenlohe family was depleted in the 20th century. His mother lost estates in the Mexican Revolution; and after the fall of the Third Reich, property in Germany and Czechoslovakia disappeared behind the iron curtain.

Early life

Alfonso was educated by private tutors in Bohemia and Spain, learning fluent German, Spanish, French and English.

After World War II, the prince started to buy land in Marbella in 1947. He sold plots to various rich and powerful friends including the likes of the Rothschild and Thyssen families. In 1954 he created the Marbella Club, the Costa del Sol's first luxury hotel, attracting many celebrities of the time to the former fishing village.

The family fortune was replenished by Alfonso's marriage in 1955 to the 15-year-old Austrian-Italian Princess Ira von Fürstenberg, a Fiat heiress. The bride's youth evoked some scandal in high society, but the couple had obtained a papal dispensation for the marriage and 400 guests attended a 16-day wedding party. Five years later the marriage was dissolved by divorce in Mexico City after Ira left him to marry another notorious 1950s playboy, Francisco "Baby" Pignatari, another dispensation being obtained, this time for an annulment, from the Church in 1969.

Later life

After the divorce, the prince had much-publicised relationships with actresses Ava Gardner and Kim Novak. In 1973 he married actress Jocelyn Lane. This too was a stormy partnership, and ended in divorce in 1985.

In the 1990s, the property speculator Jesus Gil y Gil became mayor of Marbella and the town entered a construction boom. The prince pulled out, selling his shares in the Marbella Club due to the area's increasing association with Arab arms traffickers and Russian mafia, whose conspicuous consumption was peppered with violence. He moved to the town of Ronda and successfully turned his efforts to wine-making, with a new wife, Marilys Haynes. His last wife died on 2 November 2000, apparently taking her own life, the same year he learned he had prostate cancer.

Marriages

• He married, as his first wife, HSH Princess Ira zu Fürstenberg on 17 September 1955 (civil) and 21 September 1955 (religious) in Venice, Italy; and the couple were divorced in 1960, annulled in 1969. They had two sons: Prince Christoph "Kiko" von Hohenlohe (1956–2006) and Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1959–).
• He married, as his second wife, Jocelyn Lane, on 3 May 1973 in Marbella, with whom he had a daughter, Arriana.
• With Heidi Balzar he had a daughter, Désirée zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1980), who married on 22 September 2012 Count Thibault d´Ursel.
• He married, Marilys Haynes (1941–2000) on 15 February 1991 in Vaduz.

Death

He died in Marbella on 21 December 2003.

Ancestry