Excavations at Villa A continued into the early eighties, including work on the gardens by Wilhelmina Jashemski (University of Maryland), who studied the structure of the gardens and engaged paleobotanists to study the plant material. Her paleobotanical project not only studied the root cavities of trees and bushes; it also employed pollen-and seed-flotation analysis to determine what kinds of plants were growing at villa at the time of the eruption.

When excavations ceased over twenty years ago, excavators had failed to find the limits of the villa.  In addition to the cut made across the south portion of the villa by the Sarno Canal, the foundations of the sixteenth-century mill (later to become a modern pasta factory) destroyed evidence for the continuation of the villa to the south. To the west, a busy modern street and a military compound built into the former arms factory have all but negated any possibility of future excavation. Yet the excavated parts of the villa, comprising 98 discrete spaces ranging from small rooms to a 60-meter swimming pool, reveal one of the most extravagant Roman villas on the Bay of Naples.

The villa is perhaps best known for its extraordinary examples of Second-Style decorative ensembles which can be found in several rooms, including the atrium (5), cubiculum (11), triclinium (14), and two oeci (15 and 23). Identified as Phase 2B of the Second-Style, these rooms mark the oldest part of the villa, dating to circa 50 BCE. To the northwest of the atrium, the owners added a Third-Style bath complex (1-15 CE) centered on a small fountain peristyle; this suite of rooms was later remodeled into a group of entertainment rooms during the Fourth-Style (after 45 CE).

To the east of the atrium, a peristyle (32), painted in Fourth-Style “zebra stripes,” served as the as the hub of the villa’s slave activity. Rooms surrounding it included a lararium (27), a latrine (48), and both ground and upper-story sleeping quarters. At the southwest corner, a tunnel (36), connects the servants’ quarter to a series of terraces that descended 14 meters to the ancient sea shore. A massive two-story hallway (46), lit by clerestory windows from above, led one from the slave area out to the villa’s eastern wing. This wing, situated to the west of the villa’s swimming pool, included three grand entertainment rooms separated by painted garden rooms complete with central planters and open to the sky.

Villa A underwent several phases of construction, with an initial building phase around 50 BCE, a subsequent remodeling around 1 CE, and at least two major modifications after 45 CE. There is growing evidence that either the earthquake of 62 CE, or a subsequent seismic event, inflicted enough damage to require extensive repair, and perhaps disable much, if not all, of the running water to the villa. At the time of the eruption evidence shows that it was uninhabited, and most of its marble elements had been dismantled for sale, including the fine monolithic columns that once supported east wing portico (60), found lying against the walls of room 21, some 60 meters away.