After his marriage plans were foiled, d'Adelswärd-Fersen remembered the island of Capri from his youth, and decided to build a house there.
The island had already attracted other homosexual or bisexual visitors, such as Christian Wilhelm Allers, Somerset Maugham, E. F. Benson, Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross, Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Alfred Krupp, Norman Douglas, and Compton and Faith Mackenzie; and attracted many others during Adelsward's stay.
 He stayed originally at the Grand Hotel Quisisana and then bought land at the top of a hill in the northeast of the island, close to where the Roman emperor Tiberius had built his Villa Jovis two millennia earlier.
 He commissioned his friend Édouard Chimot to design a villa, initially called Gloriette, but was eventually christened Villa Lysis (later sometimes referred to as Villa Fersen) in reference to Plato's Socratic dialogue Lysis discussing friendship (or, according to modern notions, homosexual love).
When the construction started, d'Adelswärd-Fersen left Capri to visit the Far East.
He mostly spent time on Ceylon, where he wrote Lord Lyllian.
He returned to Capri in the autumn of 1904, visiting the United States on the way back.

At some point after his return, he had to flee Capri temporarily, since some islanders blamed d'Adelswärd for a local worker's accidental death during the construction of Villa Lysis.
He went to Rome, where he met a fourteen-year-old construction worker selling newspapers, Nino Cesarini.
Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen fell in love with the boy immediately.
Jacques obtained Nino's family permission to take him as secretary.
In the spring of 1905 Jacques and Nino visited Sicily, where they met with Wilhelm von Gloeden in Taormina.

The construction of the villa was completed in July 1905.
Villa Lysis is a notable building.
Its style is described by some as "Liberty" but is not Liberty or Art Nouveau in the French manner but may perhaps be described as "Neoclassical decadent".
 The large garden is connected to the villa by steps leading to an Ionic portico.
In the atrium a marble stairway with wrought-iron balustrade leads to the first floor, where there are bedrooms with panoramic terraces, and a dining room.
The ground-floor sitting-room, decorated with blue majolica and white ceramic, overlooks the Gulf of Naples.
In the basement there is a  'Chinese Room', in which opium was smoked.

d'Adelswärd-Fersen and Nino travelled to Paris, where Jacques delivered a manuscript to publishers and went directly to Oxford.
After returning to Capri, Jacques, Nino and their four boy-servants travelled to China.
They all returned to Villa Lysis at the beginning of 1907.
After his marriage plans were foiled, d'Adelswärd-Fersen remembered the island of Capri from his youth, and decided to build a house there. The island had already attracted other homosexual or bisexual visitors, such as Christian Wilhelm Allers, Somerset Maugham, E. F. Benson, Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross, Oscar Wilde, Friedrich Alfred Krupp, Norman Douglas, and Compton and Faith Mackenzie; and attracted many others during Adelsward's stay.  He stayed originally at the Grand Hotel Quisisana and then bought land at the top of a hill in the northeast of the island, close to where the Roman emperor Tiberius had built his Villa Jovis two millennia earlier.  He commissioned his friend Édouard Chimot to design a villa, initially called Gloriette, but was eventually christened Villa Lysis (later sometimes referred to as Villa Fersen) in reference to Plato's Socratic dialogue Lysis discussing friendship (or, according to modern notions, homosexual love). When the construction started, d'Adelswärd-Fersen left Capri to visit the Far East. He mostly spent time on Ceylon, where he wrote Lord Lyllian. He returned to Capri in the autumn of 1904, visiting the United States on the way back.
At some point after his return, he had to flee Capri temporarily, since some islanders blamed d'Adelswärd for a local worker's accidental death during the construction of Villa Lysis. He went to Rome, where he met a fourteen-year-old construction worker selling newspapers, Nino Cesarini. Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen fell in love with the boy immediately. Jacques obtained Nino's family permission to take him as secretary. In the spring of 1905 Jacques and Nino visited Sicily, where they met with Wilhelm von Gloeden in Taormina.
The construction of the villa was completed in July 1905. Villa Lysis is a notable building. Its style is described by some as "Liberty" but is not Liberty or Art Nouveau in the French manner but may perhaps be described as "Neoclassical decadent".  The large garden is connected to the villa by steps leading to an Ionic portico. In the atrium a marble stairway with wrought-iron balustrade leads to the first floor, where there are bedrooms with panoramic terraces, and a dining room. The ground-floor sitting-room, decorated with blue majolica and white ceramic, overlooks the Gulf of Naples. In the basement there is a  'Chinese Room', in which opium was smoked.
d'Adelswärd-Fersen and Nino travelled to Paris, where Jacques delivered a manuscript to publishers and went directly to Oxford. After returning to Capri, Jacques, Nino and their four boy-servants travelled to China. They all returned to Villa Lysis at the beginning of 1907.
Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen