Gröbe's Villa

The two-storey Neo-Renaissance villa in the park (originally a private garden) on the edge of Vinohrady, Vršovice and Nusle was built in 1870–1874 from designs by Antonín Barvitius for the Jewish entrepreneur Moritz Gröbe. The interiors and the nearby pavilion (originally a garden game room with a shooting range, skittle-alley and chessboard tables) are the works of Josef Schulz. The frescoes on the facade were made by the Viennese painter Kugler, the sculptural decoration of the interior was created by the sculptor Detem.Unfortunately, no additional information about the participating artists is known. See Gröbova villa, Český svět I, 1904, unpaginated. In 1905, Gröbe's heirs sold the villa together with the adjoining land to the municipality of Vinohrady. Since 1906 the park, called Havliček's Park, has been open to public. Between the two world wars the villa functioned briefly as the University of Forestry, from 1937 it was used for accommodation for young people from outside of Prague. Beginning in 1939 the villa was used by the Hitlerjugend and also by the Kinderlandverschickung.Jiří Padevět, Průvodce protektorátní Prahou. Místa – události – lidé, Academia, Praha, 2013, p. 344. Radka Šustrová, Pod ochranou protektorátu: Kinderlandverschickung v Čechách a na Moravě. Politika, každodennost a paměť 1940–1945, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, Praha, 2012.

Gröbe's villa was heavily damaged in the bomb attack on 14 February 1945 and the following fire. The whole upper part of the villa was damaged as well as a large section of the park.Josef Hrubeš – Eva Hrubešová, Pražské domy vyprávějí… II., Orion, Roztoky u Prahy, 1996, pp. 127–129.

In 1953 the villa was reconstructed under the direction of Pavel Smetana and up to 1990 it served as Julius Fučík's Central House of Pioneers and Youth. Nowadays, Gröbe's villa is owned by the Prague 2 district who rents it to a private company which organizes training sessions and conferences there.