Villa Garnier

Villa Garnier (Bordighera)
Villa Garnier (Bordighera)
General information
Town or city	Bordighera
Country	Italy
Construction started	1871
Completed	1873
Client	Charles Garnier (architect)
Design and construction
Architect	Charles Garnier (architect)
Designations	Soprintendenze per i Beni Architettonici e Paesaggistici della Liguria

Villa Garnier is a building in Italy. Villa Garnier and Villa Amica are part of the properties protected by the Superintendent of Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (Italy). The villa is located 11 Garnier Street in Bordighera on Riviera.

In 1871 Charles Garnier (architect) left Paris and the building site of the Opera which was blocked due to the war with Prussia and the Paris Commune. The family moved to Menton hometown of his wife, Louise Bary and, visiting the surroundings, they discover Bordighera. Back in May 1871 Garnier chose a plot near the Arziglia, where to build his villa. Unfortunately, the land was already occupied by an old chapel dedicated to St. Sebastian, but which had been desecrated since serving as a school for boys in the country. The land was located outside the walls of the old town, down to the sea and next to fishermen beach, the famous Arziglia. To get the coveted land, Garnier decided to offer a considerable sum for the time, 6000 lire, which would be used to build a new school, much more modern and large. To facilitate the transaction, Garnier also offered the project for the new school, which included not only the boys section, but also one for girls and a kindergarten. The town accepted this generous offer.

The only known preparatory drawing of the house indicates that Garnier had planned Moorish arches for the tower of the villa. This option was not realized, but Moorish style is still present in the structure of the tower, slim and slender as an Arab minaret. Garnier had nicknamed the tower "mon mirador” (i.e. "my watchtower"), because of the beautiful view.

The villa is on three floors which are accessed via a wooden staircase that was commissioned in Paris and that was to cost 1,000 crowns, against the general budget of 75,000. On the ground floor you enter the villa through an arcade now enclosed by windows. The entrance is decorated with frescoes and drawings made by the friends of Garnier. As you enter on the right is the living room, much smaller than the dining room, where Garnier would entertain his guests. Behind the staircase a door leads to the dining room, particularly spacious and bright. The two rooms were linked by a corridor / porch closed by grates that the owners liked to call the "Lions’ cage” This room, now converted into a chapel, is decorated with a beautiful fresco of the villa and outbuildings then purchased by Garnier, as they were in the nineteenth century.

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