Image: Left/RAF/Right/Wikipedia
How the Maltese government bought Villa Guardamangia after heritage groups urged it to step in
Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip lived there as newlyweds between 1949 and 1951, while he was stationed with the Royal Navy. The project is expected to cost just over €12 million and take around three years to complete. Then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told parliament in October 2019 that the government had bought the villa, saying it could become a major tourist attraction, Times of Malta reported. He did not reveal the price, although the property had been advertised at €6.5 million. The villa was formally entrusted to Heritage Malta in June 2020, according to the agency. Minister for National Heritage Owen Bonnici said at a press conference held at the villa in October 2024 that Heritage Malta would issue the first tenders, TVM News reported. By 1 October 2025, restoration and conservation were under way. European sources are covering €10 million of the bill. The Queen was driven past the villa during a visit in 1992 and was given a painting of it in 2015.
Because she could wander through town and shop, living as any other naval officer’s wife did, according to Nine, lady Pamela Hicks, one of her bridesmaids and a cousin of Prince Philip, told the Daily Mail that Princess Elizabeth loved the island. No reopening date has been confirmed, so the planned museum has yet to welcome visitors. The late Queen regarded the time she spent living at the villa as the happiest of her life, Times of Malta reported, and it remains the only place outside Britain she called home. On seeing it that year, Nine reported, she is said to have remarked that it looked rather sad.
Ruben Abela, an architect with Heritage Malta, told TVM News that parts of the façade at risk of collapse had been stabilised and other sections reinforced. Royal commentator Victoria Arbiter told the podcast The Windsors that it was the only time the couple were free simply to be newlyweds. Villa Guardamangia, Queen Elizabeth II’s former Malta home in Pietà, is undergoing a multimillion-euro restoration led by Heritage Malta, the national heritage agency, seven years after the government bought the residence. The house remains closed to visitors as conservators work to return it to its mid-twentieth-century appearance. Heritage organisations including Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar, Heritage Malta and Din L-Art Ħelwa had long argued that the neglected building needed saving. Muscat added that talks would begin with the Pietà Council on how to handle the visitors the site was expected to draw. The works were signalled a year before they began. Garden statues and household furnishings left to deteriorate for years have been conserved, and painted decorations on the walls have been uncovered so they can be restored.
