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A luxurious villa once owned by fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld, 84, in northern Germany has gone on the market - with all the trappings of luxury you'd expect from the man at the helm of Chanel.

The 12,000sqm property, which has been listed by Hamburg-based real estate agents Engel & Völkers, boasts breathtaking views of the Elbe river and is filled with design attributes chosen by Karl during his time living in the lavish home.

Available for €10million (£8million), the 1920s mansion was originally built for Hanseatic shipping underwriter Hermann Witte as a single-story home in 1924 before a lawyer hired architect Walther Baedeker to add a second level for bedrooms three years later. 

Karl, who only lived in the villa overlooking the Elbe river for three months out of the seven years he owned it (between 1989 until 1997) is not the current owner but has spoken candidly about why he sold the property in Angel & Völkers' magazine GG this month. 

The former Hamburg, Germany residence of fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld has gone on sale for €10 million (£8m). The coffered ceiling soars almost six metres above the living room (pictured), which opens onto the garden and the river

Lagerfeld named his former home Villa Jako after his former long-term partner Jacques de Bascher who died in 1989

He said: 'It's impossible to live on the Elbe. You spend all your time looking out at the river. You ended up becoming lazy.' 

Inside, a Chinese-style salon is complete with a captivating hand-painted wall mural and masterly selected furniture. The walls appear wallpapered at first glance, but are in fact hand-painted.

The achingly stylish home is named Villa Jako, after Karl's former partner Jacques de Bascher who died from complications related to AIDS in 1989. 

The Chanel and Fendi creative director, who was born in Germany, previously described his interior inspiration as 'very Weimar Republic' in an interview with the New York Times.

When Karl moved in to the property he hired art conservator Renate Kant, who had already brought a new lease of life to the city's town hall to help refurbish the property. 

He later went on to shoot the advertising campaign for his Jako perfume in the house's gardens.

Karl gave further insight in to his interior inspiration for the villa in his book Ein Deutsches Haus published in 1997. 

The fashion titan was determined to infuse the culture of Germany in years gone by in to the design of each luxurious room. 

The secluded villa is hidden up a narrow path surrounded by meticulously placed trees overlooking the Elbe river and is held in place by Roman inspired columns. Karl reportedly purchased the property for around 3 million Deutsche marks (£13,000) 

Two rooms open to the left and right of the atrium - the kitchen to the west and a room decorated as a Chinese salon to the east (pictured)

The main level remains intimate despite being some 127 square metres. Bookshelves are used to transform a hallway (pictured) into a library space, with velvet drapes adding to the sense of homely feel. The view from the windows looks out onto the casemate-like passages, so-called haw-haws, that travel the hillside plot from east to west and originally served to keep game from entering and crossing the ground

The central space experiments with symmetry and is inspired by the style of a Roman villa. The atrium (pictured) is skylight and features a impluvium (a sunken water basin currently covered over by a carpet and wooden furniture). An entrance also leads through to the living room, which spans the entire breadth of the house and measures some 80 square metres, with three round-arched doorways that open on to the garden

The luxury home which Karl bought for around 3 million Deutsche marks has natural light pouring through a selection of sky-lit rooms and tall artistic windows. It also features glorious gold-leaf ceilings, Roman-inspired columns and opulent hallways.

The New York Times Magazine  has previously labelled the villas as the most beautiful house that Lagerfeld has ever created.

Karl has occupied roughly 20 properties in location including Rome and Monaco. More recently the style expert has turned his hand to designing interior for others in between working on his fashion empire.

Karl Lagerfeld had a bathroom (pictured) on the mezzanine transformed by the renowned French interior designer Andrée Putman. The marble room has soft furnishings which reflect the light for an airy feel

Marble and modern art create juxtaposed styles throughout the lavish property. The atrium leads to the Chinese salon (pictured). Three bedrooms, with adjoining bathrooms and a dressing room, are grouped around an open gallery, which forms the space between the skylight and the atrium

When the property was first built, the lower ground level was only accessible from the outside, but an inner staircase was added in the late 1990s allowing for direct access from the ground level. The outdoor space is filled with terraces, stone steps leading down from the house to rose, Baroque and Biedermeier gardens, as well as to a grove of elderberry trees, and a water fountain (pictured)