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Note individuelle
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Elie Mosseri's only surviving daughter, Denise, was stranded in the United States when her father died. It was while getting her degree in maths that she met and subsequently married Richard Dreyfus a scion of the Basle banking family of Dreyfus Sshne & Cie. AG, Switzerland.
After the war, Denise, Richard and their newborn daughter Catherine Charlotte-Simonette returned to Cairo. Despite the responsibility of raising a family which now included a son (Pierre b. 1949) and attending to Cairo's whirling post-war mondanitées, Denise Mosseri made time to redecorate the famed Mena House which featured among her father's vast inheritance.
Among other things Elie Mosseri was principal shareholder in the Egyptian Hotels Co. which owned several of the region's first class properties. With Rothschild backing, Mosseri had built in 1931 Jerusalem's King David Hotel. After its 22 July 1946 bombing by the Irgun Jewish terrorist gang, and before it was purchased by the Federmann family in 1957, Denise Mosseri redecorated it in opulent pseudo Egypto-Phoenician style.
Elie Mosseri family
It could have been the return of her stepdaughter that pushed la belle Helène to make separate living arrangements in the Garden City villa. This would account for an additional floor which would also be Helène's undoing when, imbued with liquor and tranquilizers (the King had been ousted from his throne), she fell from her terrace plunging to her death.
Ironically, none of Elie Mosseri's three wives were buried in his majestic family vault in Bassateen for even in her death la greque had remained an outsider.
> Two years before the king was toppled a divorced Denise Mosseri left Egypt relocating at her opulent Parisian quarters at No. 21-22 Place Vendome.
It was during her marriage to polo player Max Victor Harari and with the knowledge she would never return to Egypt that Denise leased her villa in Garden City to the United Sates ambassador as a temporary residence. Later, she would conclude another astute deal selling her house to the Swiss Confederacy with the intent they keep it as an ambassadorial residence. By the same token the Swiss government would preserve the house, its annex and garden, down to the last royal palm and rose bush, but minus the swimming pool, making it the last shred of evidence that Garden City once had gardens. Likewise, the Swiss embassy in Cairo agreed to ship Denise Mosseri's collection of china, boules and other valuable funrishings.
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MOSSERI
Denise
MOSSERI Elie N (Di Nessim Bey) ( 1879 - 1940 )
