Villa Grande (Oslo)

Villa Grande is a large villa on a hilltop on Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway, designed from 1917 by architects Christian Morgenstierne and Arne Eide for industrialist Sam Eyde, though it passed unfinished to shipowner Henrik Ostervold, who had architect Jens Zetlitz Monrad Kielland revise the plans before construction was completed in 1921. Wilhelm Wilhelmsen gave the villa to the Norwegian state in 1926, and from 1941 to 1945 it served as the residence of Vidkun Quisling and his wife Maria under the name Gimle, then as the headquarters of Allied commander in chief Andrew Thorne for several months after the war. Since 2006 the building has housed the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities, a Norwegian research institution, and it is protected as a Norwegian cultural heritage site.