Villa La Collina, Historic villa in Griante, Italy

Villa La Collina is a villa built in 1899 by the Milanese hotelier Emanuele Suardi, standing above the village of Cadenabbia in the municipality of Griante on the west shore of Lake Como. Its name, "Villa Hill", comes from this elevated position. The villa sits in a park of 2.7 hectares, next to the Villa Arminio, and since 1990 the Accademia Konrad Adenauer, a guest and service building, has stood below it on the park grounds.

Emanuele Suardi, a Milanese hotelier, built the villa in 1899 above Cadenabbia. After passing to the French Gallifet family, it stood largely unfurnished when Konrad Adenauer first stayed there in August and September 1959. He returned until summer 1966, and in 1977 the Konrad Adenauer Foundation bought the neglected property after a German builder's housing plans were refused. The Bundestag budget committee classified it in 2004 as a place of national remembrance.

The villa's German name, Villa Hügel, comes from its position high above Cadenabbia. Since 1977 the Konrad Adenauer Foundation has run it as an international meeting place, and the Accademia Konrad Adenauer, added in 1990, hosts conferences and family celebrations. Portraits of Adenauer as elder statesman by Graham Sutherland and Oskar Kokoschka were both painted here.

The villa stands high above the village of Cadenabbia, in the municipality of Griante; the grounds cover 27,000 square metres and were designated a protected landscape area in the 1990s, so no further building is possible. The site offers 34 rooms, 22 of them in the Accademia Konrad Adenauer built below the villa in 1990, plus a conference room with simultaneous interpreting equipment, two boccia courts and a garden swimming pool.

Both of Adenauer's portraits as elder statesman, by Graham Sutherland and Oskar Kokoschka, were painted at Villa La Collina. Since 2004 the Bundestag has classed the villa as a memorial of national importance, making it the only German memorial site outside German territory.