In 1968, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty set out to design and construct an opulent new setting for his vast collection of antiquities. He envisioned a perfect context for its display: A classical building similar to those in which the works of art and objects were originally seen—recreated on his 45-acre Malibu estate.

Bubbling up from the hardened volcanic debris of Mt. Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 A.D., which entombed the bustling city of Pompeii, along with the much-smaller town of Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples, came his model: the Villa dei Papiri. This splendid Roman country house just outside Herculaneum was considered one of the most luxurious private residences of the ancient world. It takes its unusual name from the carbonized papyrus rolls of philosophical texts that were discovered in the vestiges of the villa’s ancient library in the mid-18th century during excavations that tunneled throughout the villa in search of artifacts, and that also yielded a precise archeological ground plan drawing of the villa’s original footprint. Today, most of the Villa dei Papiri still remains buried, but having seen the ground plan drawing, Getty decided to use it as the basis for his villa-cum-museum. From his home in England, he watched its construction through films and photographs (the global businessman shunned airplanes), but died only two years after it opened in 1974, without even having visited his recreation.

Between 1974 and 1997, the Getty Villa served as the showplace for an ever-growing collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, along with Old Master paintings and rare decorative French furniture. Concurrent with the opening of the Getty Center Museum (in Brentwood) in 1997, the Villa was closed to undergo a nine-year, $275-million "re-imagining" and reconstruction, which includes windows and skylights in the second-floor galleries, the addition of a Roman-style theater and a new entry pavilion fashioned from marble, travertine and translucent onyx.

Today, the Getty Villa houses the antiquities collection, which encompasses 44,000 Greek, Roman and Etruscan artifacts, of which more than 1,200 are on public view. The scope of the Getty’s ever-growing collection ranges from intimate objects of everyday life in the ancient world to spectacular art treasures rivaling those found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Art, Boston. Even now, with controversy swirling around the issues of cultural patrimony and provenance, the Getty’s new antiquities curator, Karol Wight, vows to continue to enhance the Villa’s collection under stricter standards adopted by the museum last year: The Getty will not consider any object whose provenance does not date back to at least 1970, the date of a landmark UNESCO Convention prohibiting traffic in illicit antiquities. However, claims on precious artifacts by foreign governments linked to the methods of their acquisition continue to plague major museums, including the Getty, as well as certain collectors, dealers and the Getty’s former antiquities curator, Marion True (presently on trial in Italy on charges of conspiring to acquire looted objects for the museum).

Recently, the Getty Museum returned an ancient gold funerary wreath and marble statue to Greece after questions arose about their provenance. And, for the time being (until 2010), a fifth-century B.C. carved-limestone cult goddess statue (possibly Aphrodite) will remain on view, though it is among 40 objects in the Getty Villa’s collection to be transferred back to Italian soil according to an agreement of August 1, 2007, reached between the Getty and the Italian government. The goddess statue has been described by the Getty as "arguably the most art historically important of the antiquities in the museum’s collection." True bought the piece for the Getty in 1988 for $18 million, a record for an ancient artifact at the time.

For first-time visitors, the main focus is undoubtedly the Villa itself. Docent-led tours of the architecture, landscape and gardens help to evoke the classical period through the Villa’s abundance of extant replicas of statues and decorative detailings from the Villa dei Papiri, Herculaneum and other ancient sites also covered by the volcanic eruption of 79 A.D. Precisely planted gardens filled with species known to have flourished around the ancient Mediterranean offer up the scent of herbs and flowers commonly used in Roman daily life. The inner peristyle’s central focus includes a grouping of life-like bronze statuary, while the outer peristyle has the 220-foot long reflecting pool, adorned with statuary replicas placed in positions corresponding to where they were found in the original villa. Walkways under covered colonnades demonstrate the artistry and craftsmanship of the period with true-to-color wall paintings and intricately patterned polished stone and marble floors. Another highlight of the Villa is the "Triclinium" (a dining room area), which features a lavish display of multi-colored floor and wall marble artistry, copying the patterns of those found at Herculaneum, as well as replicating designs and details from various other ancient buildings, using marble fragments collected from Egypt, Sparta, Turkey, Tunisia and Italy.