Villa Etelinda

Who built it and who lived here

The villa was designed by Charles Garnier for Raphaël Bischoffsheim, a German banker who lived in Paris, between 1873 and 1875 according to Wikipedia (the FAI gives 1878). Garnier reused a few elements from his own house in Bordighera, Villa Garnier: the slim turret and the polychrome mosaics on the façade. The garden is by Ludwig Winter, the landscape designer of the Hanbury Gardens in Ventimiglia, together with the hydraulic engineer Paul-Vincent Levieux.

In 1879 the future Queen Margherita of Savoy stayed here as a guest, with her mother. In 1896 the villa passed to the Earl of Strathmore, who renamed it Etelinda after the opera written by his daughter Mildred. Among his guests was little Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future Queen Mother of England. In 1913–14 Margherita of Savoy bought the villa and the garden and had Villa Regina Margherita built in the same park; she died there in 1926.

Monet and the tower of Etelinda

In 1884 Claude Monet painted the tower of Villa Etelinda in his views “Les Villas à Bordighera”. In the best-known painting the villa appears on the left, painted from the garden of Villa Garnier. For the rest of his Bordighera canvases, read the guide to Monet in Bordighera and the catalogue of his works.

What to do nearby

Via Romana is the street of the villas of Bordighera. The Bicknell Museum, with its big ficus, and the other 19th-century villas are close by. Villa Pompeo Mariani is higher up, above the old town. To see where Monet set up his easel, head to its park.