London, and King Alfonso XII of Spain. The people who entered the massive building, spanning nearly , were generally awed by its immense size and extensive ornamentation. Claude Debussy described it as resembling a railway station on the outside, and that the interior could easily be mistaken for a Turkish bath. Garnier's works represent a Neo-Baroque-inspired style, popular during the Beaux-Arts period in France. He was influenced by the Italianate styles of Renaissance artisans such as Palladio, Sansovino, and Michelangelo, perhaps the result of his many visits to Greece and Rome during his lifetime. He was also a pioneer of architectural beauty as well as function; his opera was built on a framework of metal girders, unprecedented at the time. Aside from being fireproof, steel and iron was much stronger than wood, allowing it to successfully withstand the countless heavy tons of marble and other materials heaped upon it without breaking. Later work In 1872 and 1873 Garnier built a vacation home on the Italian Riviera, the Villa Garnier in Bordighera. He was one of the first to build there after the arrival of the railroad in 1871 and later contributed various private and public buildings to the town until his death in 1898. Other architectural contributions include the Grand Concert Hall of the Monte Carlo Casino (1876/79–1879, since remodeled as the Opéra de Monte-Carlo) and the Salle de Jeu Trente-et-Quarante (1880–81), both on the Place du Casino in Monte-Carlo; the Nice Astronomical Observatory (1879–88); the 117 boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris (1878–80); the Hôtel Hachette, 195 boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris (1878–1881); the Panorama Marigny in Paris (1880–82); now the Marigny Theatre); and his last work, the Magasin (storehouse) de Décors de l'Opéra on the rue Berthier in Paris (1894–95; now the Ateliers Berthier of the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe). Death Garnier retired from his private architectural practice in 1896, but continued to serve on juries for architectural competitions and to appear at official functions. He suffered a first stroke at 4 o'clock in the morning on 2 August 1898 while at home in Paris, and a second stroke the following evening, dying at 8 o'clock in the evening. He was interred in the Montparnasse cemetery. After his death a public monument (completed in 1902 to designs by Jean-Louis Pascal and crowned with a copy of the bust of Garnier, which had been created by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in 1869) was erected west