UPDATE: Fleur de Lys

It was less than two weeks ago that word spread across the property gossip globe that after half a dozen year on and off the market couture collecting divorcée Suzanne Saperstein sold her fearlessly ostentatious Los Angeles estate known as Fleur de Lys to a still mysterious buyer for a heart stopping and record busting $102,000,000.

Now comes word via the L.A. Times that the new owner—identified in the property gossip columns as  a French billionaire even as some speculate might actually be L.A.-based junk bond billionaire Michael Milken—has put the elegant if pretentiously palatial chateau up for long-term lease at $400,000 per month plus an elephantine $1 million security deposit just in case the tenants scratch up the antique floors or put a hole in the gilt-trimmed paneling.

All together the estate—main manse, pool house, staff quarters, caretaker's house, etc.—has about 50,000 square feet of lavish living space on nearly five fastidiously manicured acres.

As preposterous as $400,000 per month sounds to rent this or any other house it's child's play compared to the $600,000 per month financier Leonard Ross wants for William Randolph Hearst's former Beverly Hills estate known as Beverly House that, not so surprisingly, returned to the market for sale in the wake of the Fleur de Lys sale with an astronomical $135,000,000 price tag, down from its original $165 million asking price.

listing photo: Pacific Coast News