MILAN HAS A GRITTY GLAMOUR that doesn’t endear itself to every visitor, but on my first visit I was surprised how much I liked it. From the imposing, imperial stone behemoth of Milano Centrale train station, I walked down the dusty, grand streets straight to the Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1930s house and walled garden set like an emerald in the heart of Milan. I’d wanted to go ever since I saw Luca Guadagnino’s 2009 film “I Am Love,” in which the house served as both the set and soul of the story, a restrained but sumptuous vision of Italian architecture. Designed by fashionable Milanese architect Piero Portaluppi and built between 1932 and 1935 for the wealthy industrialist Angelo Campiglio, his wife and her sibling (the Necchi sisters) the house affirms that the jewels of Milan are often found behind lock and key.

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