The first nucleus of the present day Villa, was built around 1765 on the instructions of the d’Adda family. The original building of which the north façade has been preserved, was attributed (because of the similarity of its balcony to the one on the facade of Milan’s Palazzo Sormani) to Francesco Croce, authoritative figure in the late Lombard Baroque period. In 1781 Marquis Gianbattista d’Adda entrusted the task of restructuring the Villa to Giuseppe Piermarini. Villa Borromeo passed by inheritance from the d’Adda’s to the Borromeo’s at the end of the XIX century and was used till World War II for vacationing and receptions which often included royal guests among the invited.