The Necchi family were wealthy industrialists from Pavia. The sisters, Nedda and Gigina, inherited both fortune and ambition and were drawn to the vitality and cultural life of Milan. The villa was not built out of necessity, but as positioning. Milan in the 1930s had it's own hierarchy.

The brief was simple: to host, to be accepted, and to move within its highest circles. For this, they chose Piero Portaluppi, one of the most forward-thinking architects in Milan at the time. Rationalist, eclectic, and already known and trusted within the networks the Necchi’s were entering.

Conceiving the villa as a total work of art, he designed it across four floors, linked by a private lift reserved for the family. Staff circulation was entirely separated via service stairs. From Milan's first private heated pool to convection heater covers and dinner service, every element belongs to a single design language.

The entry hall is of grand proportions. The balustrade, in a Greek key pattern, immediately signals Portaluppi's use of repetition as structure.

Off the hall, the library is lined floor to ceiling in rosewood shelving, where furniture dissolves into architecture. French novels, art and travel books fill every shelf. Mahogany card tables, designed for the sisters' daily games, sit at the centre of it all.

Adjacent is a room originally intended as a guest cloakroom with a walnut table repeating the Greek key motif. The sisters had other ideas though and instead became the gun room, defined by their interest in hunting.

Across the villa, the lozenge motif recurs in ceilings, sliding doors, wardrobe galleries and furniture. The main reception room is organised around glazed partitions that separate without closing. Sightlines run through fireplace and lounge. Even sociability is structured.

Behind this apparent openness sits a precise service system. Concealed dumbwaiters connect dining rooms to kitchens below. Bell systems run through every space. Convection heaters are encased in geometric covers that extend rather than interrupt the architectural language.

In the study designed for Gigina's husband Angelo, a mahogany field desk unfolds into a working system of bookrests, lateral wings and a chair. A safe and storage cupboards dissolve into rosewood panelling.

From the main staircase, walnut panelled with an original stucco ceiling, a large atrium opens up on the upper floor. The wardrobe gallery runs between the bedrooms, its walls lined with doors that create the illusion of multiple rooms. Most conceal storage, positioned away from the bedrooms so garments can be managed without disturbing privacy. The barrel-vaulted ceiling above is embellished with a criss-cross pattern.

Framed photographs throughout the villa register who came. European royalty, Juan Carlos of Spain, Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, Prince Heinrich of Hesse. The brief, it seems, was well executed.

The villa was completed in 1935. In 1938, just three years after completion, the sisters turned toward the fashion for antiques and 18th century interiors, and Tomaso Buzzi was brought in.

A Milanese society favourite and leading neo-traditionalist, Buzzi was initially commissioned for the bedrooms. His remit soon expanded room by room.

The smoking room shows the contrast most clearly. Portaluppi's low geometric fireplace was replaced with a moulded Renaissance form. Curved sofas and 18th century consoles filled the room in place of the original furnishings. Sliding doors once defined by walnut and lozenge detail were covered in white facings, erasing one of Portaluppi's most controlled gestures.

In the lounge the same logic intensifies. Geometric discipline gives way to drapery, fringe and embroidery. Portaluppi's umbrella lamp and original furnishings were replaced with a Louis XV chandelier and period pieces.

You move through the villa watching one designer speak over another. Portaluppi was gone by then. He had no say in it.

And that is what stayed with us after we left. Our admiration for Portaluppi's skill, his attention to detail not only in the design but in understanding the practicalities, wants and needs of the family. There is something telling in the fact that when FAI restored the villa in 2008 they reinstated Portaluppi's original features in some of the rooms. Buzzi's rooms sit alongside them and the contrast is immediately noticed.

Every designer who has handed over a finished project knows some version of this. The work leaves your hands and what happens next is no longer yours to control. If you get the chance, go. It is a masterclass in what it looks like when a single design narrative runs through an entire building, and what happens when another voice interrupts it.