Despite repeated claims that it was based on the town of Portofino, Italy,
Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, Portmeirion's designer, denied this, stating only that he wanted to pay tribute to the atmosphere of the Mediterranean.
He did, however, draw from a love of the Italian village stating, "How should I not have fallen for Portofino?
Indeed its image remained with me as an almost perfect example of the man-made adornment and use of an exquisite site..."

Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975.
He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects.
Portmeirion's architectural bricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia
have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late twentieth century.

Three versions of Saint Peter have stood on the Toll House balcony,
greeting visitors as they entered the village: