A private tour of Villa Necchi Campiglio

Why it is on the list

Piero Portaluppi built the villa between 1932 and 1935 with a separate porter's lodge, a private swimming pool, a service tunnel, an internal lift and furniture he designed for the rooms; from 1938 Tomaso Buzzi reworked some of them in an eighteenth-century manner.¹ The pool was the second built in Milan and the first on private land; the Necchi sisters left the house to FAI, and it opened to visitors in May 2008 after a restoration of more than three years.² The ground floor keeps the library, drawing room, veranda with its built-in winter garden, smoking room and dining room; the hall holds Mario Sironi's La famiglia del pastore and Arturo Martini's L'Amante morta, from the Gian Ferrari collection, beside the de' Micheli and Sforni collections.¹ Portaluppi's own archive came to the villa in 2026.¹

It is the wrong choice for a single work of art seen alone: take the after-hours Last Supper. For a designer's working rooms rather than a family's house, take the Achille Castiglioni studio after hours.

How to get it

Write to the villa's office at segreterianecchi@fondoambiente.it and ask for a private guided tour; the same address handles other experiences outside the public programme.³ The villa answers on +39 02 76340121.³ It is open to the public Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry at 17:00.³ For reference, a place on a public guided tour costs EUR 22 an adult and ordinary entry EUR 15, with an audio guide on your own phone.³ The house has no air conditioning.³

Discretion

The villa stands in its own garden inside a limited-traffic zone and has no private parking; paid street parking is nearby, and Palestro on metro line 1 is a five-minute walk.³ A reserved parking space and a ramp entrance at the back of the house can be arranged in advance, and a lift serves every floor.³