Pompeii's grandest house gets a $1.6 million restoration funded by private sponsor

MILAN -- An ancient residence believed to be the grandest in the Pompeii archaeological site is being restored with the entire 1.4 million euros ($1.6 million) cost being covered by a private sponsor, officials announced Tuesday.

The house of Marcus Fabius Rufus, modeled after Rome’s imperial palaces and buried in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvio that destroyed the ancient city in 79 A.D., has been inaccessible to the public since 1980. Originally built on Pompeii’s city walls, it features four floors connected by a maze of corridors and staircases.

Part of it is expected to open to guided groups by Christmas, officials for the Archeological Park of Pompeii said.

The renovation is being paid for by a German entrepreneur, Frank Hoefer, who contacted the archaeological park after reading superintendent Gabriel Zuchtriegel’s 2023 book: “Pompeii: The Enchanted City.”

“Restoring the spectacular residence of Marcus Fabius Rufus … is a project I find exciting,” Hoefer said in a release. “I also have the impression that Pompeii is very open to innovative approaches to preservation and public access.”

Zuchtriegel said the goal is to expand such sponsorships.

“This does not mean that from tomorrow on if we had 50 such sponsors we would be able to abolish the entrance ticket, putting it at just a symbolic one-euro price, but it is a perspective towards which we have to work to develop the site,” Zuchtriegel said in a video statement.

Structural work was carried out on the house from 2021-2023, and current renovations are focused on the frescoes, including the famous Venus of Pompeii located in a chapel within the residence. The owner was believed to be a magistrate or a freedman of the imperial household.

Zuchtriegel said work was also being done to make the complex more accessible, and digital technology was being developed to help people grasp the “incredible labyrinth” that makes up the house.

“At times, you feel like you are in a 19th-century palace in Naples, yet this is a Roman house from 2,000 years ago,” Zuchtriegel said.