Well one thing is for sure, the market for the Versace Mansion was not $125 million or the $75 million that it has been previously listed for. The posh US seaside villa where Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace lived and was murdered in 1997 sold in auction Tuesday for $41.5 million.

The fully furnished Miami Beach property went to VM South Beach LLC, a group led by investor Joe Nakash, one of three bidders.

Rival offers were made by Eric Trump, the son of real estate tycoon Donald Trump, and Glenn Straub, owner of the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club.

Bidding for the villa, which is called Casa Casuarina and has 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, started at $25 million.

The auction lasted less than 20 minutes in the mansion's swimming pool area on 1116 Ocean Drive, as reporters covering the event were kept outside.

The villa will be apparently be turned into a hotel and the idea is to expand the Victor Hotel to create one big hotel complex with the Versace villa and ask the Versace family for permission to use their name.

It will be interesting to see what the cost is fro that. The Versace villa was built in 1930 by architect and philanthropist Alden Freeman. He wanted to pay tribute to the oldest home in the western hemisphere, built in 1510 in what is now the Dominican Republic, by Diego Colon, a son of Christopher Columbus. His name in Spanish was Cristobal Colon.

Gianni Versace bought the home in 1992 for $2.9 million.

The Versace family got rid of it after his killing, selling it in 2000 to Peter Loftin for $19 million.

He put it up for sale last year for $125 million. No buyers emerged, and he eventually lowered it to $75 million before finally deciding to auction it off.