The White Villa sits on the slope of Mount Lớn above Front Beach, a small French colonial mansion painted in cream and surrounded by frangipani trees. It was built at the turn of the 20th century as a governor's retreat, then used as a holiday residence by Vietnamese heads of state through several regimes.
Today it is open as a small museum — colonial-era furniture, photographs, Ming dynasty ceramics recovered from a wreck off the coast, and a few rooms set up as they were in the 1920s. The terraces give one of the best views over the bay. Worth an hour if you are interested in colonial architecture; the gardens alone justify the visit.