Solar da Marquesa de Santos

This guide to Solar da Marquesa de Santos in São Paulo follows the mansion from an emperor's scandalous love letters to Domitila de Castro in the 1820s, through her decades as its flamboyant hostess, to the gas company that gutted its interior for storefronts starting in 1909. Workmen tore out the original walls and built whole new office wings behind the still-aristocratic facade. Look closely at the front rooms for where that older, grander layout still peeks through.