The Getty Villa, Pacific Pallisades, CA

The Getty Villa is the most accurate recreation of a Roman country house in the modern world. It is modelled after the first-century Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum, Italy.

The building was constructed in the early 1970s by architects who worked closely with J. Paul Getty to develop the villa to house his unparalleled private collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman art of all kinds.

It was constructed in the early 1970s, the Getty Villa is designed to recreate a first-century Roman country home. Buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, much of the Villa dei Papiri remains unexcavated. Therefore, the architects based many of the Museum's architectural and landscaping details on elements from other ancient Roman houses in the buried towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae.

Gardens are integral to the setting of the Getty Villa, as they were in the ancient Roman home, and include herbs and shrubs inspired by those grown in ancient Roman villas.