Villa Zanelli and its park form a unitary complex, overlooking the Mediterranean sea.
The whole complex is protected by the Italian law (Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code).

The Villa was built in 1907 by Captain Nicolò Zanelli, in a project by the Turin architect Goffredo Gussoni. Its rich decorative design represents one of the best examples of Liberty style along the Savona coastline.
The property remained in the Zanelli family until 1933 when it was sold to the Municipality of Milan which transformed it into a campsite and international colony. During the war it was used as a field hospital then as premises for the local health authority until its abandonment.

Although the Villa still expresses, with various symptoms of deterioration, its compositional, functional and decorative structure, the park nowadays appears in total abandonment, devoid of forms or artifacts in which it is possible to recognize an organic composition.

The absence of any trace of internal paths and the growth of spontaneous vegetation has led to the almost complete loss of possible compositional and functional references.

Concave and convex shapes outline sinuous paths near the Villa, typical of the garden of the early 1900s. However, to the west part the park lines turn to a geometric design, probably cultivated fields, with two avenues that meet orthogonally in the center of the area now occupied by the fire station.

The restoration project reproduces the original design of lawns and paths, finding coherence and balance between the original forms of the private garden and the demands of the new use of the Villa that will be open to the public as a hotel and museum.

All the trees were mostly preserved. In order to restore the link between the Villa and its garden, the paths delineating the perimeter of the large lawns and the newly planted flower beds with autochthonous species and flowering shrubs, are concentrated near the villa itself and the depandance.

The four sides of the perimeter that surrounds the park of Villa Zanelli are heterogeneous with each other. The front of via Nizza, which is the main one, is composed of a continuous wall with Liberty-style pillars, as well as the two original wrought iron gates.
The east and south sides are typical rural walls made of local stone.
Conversely, the wall on the west side was built in more recent times, in prefabricated concrete elements.

The south side is particularly interesting as it combines the concrete anti-landing wall (muro antisbarco) of the Second World War with the original rural wall made of local stone.
On this side, it is planned to restore the wall and reopen three gates, now closed, respecting the original ratio between solids and voids, without altering their proportions.

The restoration of the park is integrated with the new waterfront project by providing a new public pedestrian path between via Nizza and the sea.