A villa in floral Liberty style

The building, located in Corso degli Inglesi, was once called Villa Iris because of its rich decoration with numerous stylized flowers, the irises.

The villa, recently restored, was designed in the early twentieth century by Francesco Sappia, on order of a well-known doctor of the city, Stefano Panizzi.

The structure of the villa denotes Sappia's admirable ability to create a particularly balanced Art Nouveau style in his works, without any influence from other styles, apart from the presence of the usual turret.

The Sanremo architect, who had recently built the Hotel Splendid in Bordighera, uses the same motifs, albeit with greater sobriety, as can be seen from the stylised irises between the small columns of the surrounding wall, the semi-circular window surmounted by a female face in relief typical of the Jugendstil, already present in Sappia's previous work.

Finally, it should be noted that, originally, the upper part of the turret, in the attic area, was darker than the rest of the building, and this difference is further underlined in architectural terms by a double transversal line in relief crossing the façade.

(sources: text by Andrea Gandolfo)