Beckett had visited the villa during his travels in Italy and had fallen in love with it. He bought it from the Amici family in 1904, and enlisted the help of Nicola Mansi, a tailor-barber-builder from Ravello whom he had met in England, to help with the restoration and enlargement of the villa and gardens. Beckett died in London in 1917 and his body was brought to Villa Cimbrone to be buried at the base of the Temple of Bacchus in the gardens.