Ponzi Scheme Shutters Versace's Casa Casuarina in Miami
Things might have been popping in Miami Beach over the weekend, thanks to Art Basel but one place that had the lights off was the old Gianni Versace mansion-turned-exclusive private hotel, Casa Casuarina.
The NY Post reports that the hotel's owner, Peter Loftin, closed the gates after a major investor Scott Rothstein was arrested on charges of running a $1 billion Ponzi scheme.
Yet, this is actually just another bad turn for the Casa Casuarina. Initially, Loftin wanted to turn the house into a fancy, members-only club where folks would pay a $50,000 fee to join. Hotel rooms were open to a very select few that could afford the $5,000 fee. Gradually, as this plan began to suffer, hotel rooms were opened to more and more regular paying customers and the mansion was rented out for private parties.
But the bad karma continued. A manager of the place was fired a few years ago for irresponsibly using the hotel's cash supply and recently, the feds handed Loftin a $66,000 tax lien on the mansion. And we all remember that Gianni was murdered here on the front steps back in 1997.
We've often wondered when this place would turn into a regular luxury hotel but now we're thinking that might not work either. Why not sell it back to the Versace folk and turn it into some giant Versace merchandise mecca? We think Gianni would like that. Oh and in case you were wondering, the hotel's Twitter feed has not been updated since July.
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