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The villa was designed by the architect Federico Frigerio, after Villa Pirotta and Villa Rebuschini. The construction was ordered by "cavalier" Arturo Stucchi, well know industrial men of the silk firm Edoardo Stucchi from Como, who gave to the Villa the name "Baita Maria" after his wife’s name. The house was finished between 1919 and 1920 as it is seen in the date (1920) written on the two meridians clocks painted on the wall of the portier-house and on the front of the Villa, and inside the Villa over the great fire-place where it is written the year 1919. According to a style absolutely anomalous (one should remember that the Liberty style was almost dead, that there was already the Futuristic Avanguard and that Antonio Sant’Elia, the anticipator of the Modern Movement, died in Como in 1916), the architect Frigerio chose for his important ordering person to use again the neo-medieval style with a feeling and fantasy revealing all characteristics of a real professional architect. Constructed on a square design, the Villa develops mainly on two floors: the one reserved to a series of living, studio, dining rooms and verandah on ground floor and that with bedrooms and many service-rooms on first floor. The part of the house looking to the mountain was arranged for the service staff, with an independent stair for internal communication. The four sides of the construction differ remarkably, each of them being characterized by a different perspective. The southern side is divided into three parts: the central one in "wall", the left one a wood and glass verandah and the right one an open space covered by a crosier (cross-shape roof); two more open space can be seen on first floor over the verandah and the "crosier". The western side is characterized by the main entrance protected by a lowered arch on which there is an outgoing second arch in red bricks and wood, suspended by great wooden supports. In the eastern side there is another smaller entrance and two different geometric (white and red squares) decorations and blue and red half rhombus located on two walls slightly inklined. The northern side shows another outgoing shape in medieval style on first floor and nearby an open space with terrace. The variety of architectural solutions and decorations reveal even more at present days the surprising freedom of Frigerio to combine together architectural inserts with fantastic decorations. Out of every resemblance with the architecture of the place, the Villa seems to come out of a book of medieval stories which remind some pictorial images as the Guidoriccio da Fogliano by Simone Martini from Siena. Different phrases and enigmas are inserted in the decoration. Inside the Villa the two more important rooms are connected by an arch "a tutto sesto" which looks on an incredibly great fire-place, where several names and family-symbols have been designed. It is noticeable the great square space of the stair which ends on the upper floor in a small cloister, in part real and in part painted with light coming from the top inside a dense decoration of green motives. The Villa is equipped by a great portier-house in the same style, which partly looks to the external road. The "L" shape contains inside a polygonal body in rough bricks which is connected to the "L" shape at the level of first floor, living downstairs an open space with "portico". Towards the street the shape of the chimney reminds some particulars of the "summaraghiane" villas. The property of the Villa was rather soon transferred to the Count Fornasari of Milan and recently was bought by a society.
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