The family moved to Menton hometown of his wife, Louise Bary and, visiting the surroundings, they discover Bordighera.

To get the coveted land, Garnier decided to offer a considerable sum for the time, 6000 lire, which would be used to build a new school, much more modern and large.

To facilitate the transaction, Garnier also offered the project for the new school, which included not only the boys section, but also one for girls and a kindergarten.

This option was not realized, but Moorish style is still present in the structure of the tower, slim and slender as an Arab minaret.

[4] The villa is on three floors which are accessed via a wooden staircase that was commissioned in Paris and that was to cost 1,000 crowns, against the general budget of 75,000.

The parental bedroom and that of their son communicated through an open loggia which was then closed to allow Christian to gather his collection of shells, fossils, maps etc.

In the villa you can still see some paintings by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, Alexandre Bida and Georges Clairin which were part of the collection of Garnier.

Upon her death, Louise left the villa to the Société de Géographie of Paris, including all the vessels, the works of art, books, etc.

Despite this clause, in 1929 the villa was sold to the American art critic John Hemming Fry (1861-1946) who, in admiration, erected a monument to Garnier, on the Cape Pineta, on 28 April 1935.

The small pavilion, now missing, was transformed into a hammam on the advice of the family doctor and friend, Dr. Depraz.

During the railway works and the extension of the Via Aurelia, a large part of the garden was expropriated and the house was later demolished and rebuilt by the new owner, Maurizio Lega.

There are no original drawings of the internal structure of the house but you can assume that the interior layout of the premises was similar to neighboring villas.

In 1884 the health of his beloved son Christian, had deteriorated and his father decided to give him his studio in villa Granier and make a new one for him.

In 1919 villa Studio was inherited by Silvia Giuseppina Busquet, wife of the French editor Charles Fouquet.

[9] Today the garden has a smaller size, about 2500m², but it has a rich collection: 10 different types of palm, a Dracaena draco and a variety of trees, including a copy of Nolina longifolia.

[10] In the garden you can still see a bust of Charles Garnier by the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and a column from the Tuileries Palace in Paris.