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It costs Khashoggi an estimated $250,000 a day to support his life-style. His twelve estates around the world include a 180,000-acre ranch in Kenya and a $30 million apartment that takes up two entire floors of a luxury building on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. He has homes in Marbella, Paris, Cannes, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Rome, Beirut, Riyadh, Jidda and Monte Carlo. His 282- ft. yacht Nabila (complete with helicopter) makes Queen Elizabeth's Britannia look like a package-tour ship. His fleet includes three commercial- size jets, twelve stretch Mercedes limousines, a total of 100 vehicles and a stable of Arabian horses.
This past Christmas Eve, Khashoggi entertained some 60 guests at his 5,000- acre spread on Spain's postcard Mediterranean coast. For the occasion, La Baraka (in Arabic, "the blessings of God") was transformed into a Moorish palace: gold chandeliers draped in white leaves and red streamers, the ceiling of the 50-ft.-high ballroom covered with shimmering silver and gold spangles like the fringes on a flapper's dress. That night, like a magnanimous feudal lord, Khashoggi, in a gray-and-black satin tuxedo, greeted his guests with kisses on both cheeks. Servants trooped into the ballroom carrying great silver salvers of lobster thermidor and pheasant with apples. For the children, there was a magic show featuring live doves, as well as hand-painted Cinderella-like carriages for them to ride around in.
The next day Khashoggi called his wife Lamia into his all-white bedroom to give her a $1.9 million diamond, emerald-and-ruby necklace. "Oh, Baba!" (Arabic for "father") she exclaimed when she saw it. His ex-wife Soraya, who presented her husband with a $2.5 billion divorce suit seven years ago that was resolved amicably, was also at the house: she got a less expensive ruby necklace. Christmas was relatively quiet this year, said Khashoggi, because the family is still grieving the death of his sister in March.
Fantastic parties are a Khashoggi signature. Christmas was a simple tea compared with his 50th-birthday fete in 1985, at which he entertained more than 400 guests at a three-day extravaganza. His birthday cake, a model of Louis XIV's coronation crown, was created by a chef who was flown to the Louvre to study the original. Khashoggi's parties also take place in his 30,000-sq.-ft. quarters incorporating the 46th and 47th floors of the Olympic Towers in Manhattan. Created out of 16 separate apartments, the abode has a pool that overlooks the spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral. What will the host wear to his soiree? At Marbella there is a small warehouse, called the Central European Distribution Center, for Khashoggi's clothes. More than 1,000 handmade suits, encased in plastic and ranging from size 46 to 56 to accommodate Khashoggi's shifting figure, line the walls, sorted by color. The clothes are shipped to each of his homes so that he will have a full wardrobe of Arab and Western wear wherever he happens to be.