Vila Na Šafránce: The demolished house is being sold for 95 million
At the end of 2018, it woke up general outrage at the demolition of a listed villa in Vinohrady. She drove into the residential area, where it is teeming with lucrative buildings a heavy technique that began to devastate one of the rondocubist moments there. Just the timely intervention of the authorities causedthat the villa was not completely razed to the ground.
A sad sight: This is how the rondocubist villa in Na Šafránce Street ended after the start of the unauthorized demolition. ÚMČ Prague 10
Illegal demolition
“There is no doubt that there was an illegal demolition,” former senator and then mayor of Prague 10, now opposition representative Renata Chmelová (VLASTA) points out that the then the owner of the building, the company AWM Bohemia CZ, did have a permit, but only for gradual modifications to the house, not for demolition.
“During the demolition no security measures were taken either,” Vít Novák, the then spokesman for Prague 10, also provided Blesk. “I will maximum, so that the villa is built back in the same spirit,” added Chmelová, who also dealt with the situation on the floor of the Senate.
A villa for a bargain
A villa built in the rondocubist style, is currently in a state of disrepair. In principle, in 2018, the heavy machinery left the origin of the then owner, which was the company AWM Bohemia, which according to Blesk, he acquired the property for a “ridiculous” 11 crowns.
Already in 2013, the city district “got rid” of only 5 million crowns of railways, which Chmelová still does not understand. “This is an asset that Prague 10 has never gotten rid of! It is a relic of the godfatherism era, when Prague 10 was in the power of the ODS“, Chmelová raises her finger. At that time he was the mayor of Prague 10, Milan Richterwhose contacts with Tomáš Hrdlička or Roman Janoušek were a public secret.
The former mayor of Prague 10, Milan Richter (ODS), also served as deputy to Pavlo Bém.
Author: Ladislav Křivan / Flash
Hot potato?
As soon as the villa was in private hands, hers the price skyrocketed. “I would estimate the value maybe even seventy million,” said Jan Zachystal, a real estate expert from RE/MAX Alfa, in 2018. He also stated that all transactions around the villa until that time were significantly undervalued. But it was not the last change of owner.
Even at the beginning of 2022, the villa was owned by the mentioned company AWM Bohemia, the chief director was Veronika Hofmanová. The company was managed by procurator Bohumil Ladman, while both are close to the “carousel” family of the Kočkovys. It was a company that was operating as a branch in the trade register removal of buildings and disposal of hazardous waste. Based on information from the Vršovice Town Hall, 2019 took place misdemeanor proceedings at the building authority, which decided on a monetary sanction, against which the owner appealed and requested an additional construction permit from the building authority, but did not provide the necessary documentation.
The husband of the owner of the company, which owns a protected villa, was attacked by Topolánek and guarded the funeral of Václav Kočka.
Author: Blesk.cz
Since February 2022, the owner of the villa is Vita Rosea, a property management company. Its managing director is Nikola Peričová, already in the summer of 2022 the procedure for an additional construction permit was definitively denied, why it was filed new request, which has not been resolved to date. If the owner has run out of patience with the building authority, wants to evaluate a previous investment, or has other reasons for sellingas well as what determines the current price of the offered villa, she refused to tell. “The current owner is you does not want media attention around this property,” answered Blesk Jan Babka, marketing director of Next Reality, which has the property on offer.
This is how the villa looked before the demolition.
Author: ÚMČ Prague 10
“Cripple” for less than 100 million
The striking thing is that while in 2018, an expert estimated the price of the lucrative villa at 70 millionlike “Cripple” who almost had it, the real estate agency is now offering it for 95 million with the note that the villa is “destined for complete reconstruction.” Considering that structural modifications are requested, its further fate is fully dependent on the future owner, which leaves the neighbors with some hope and nervousness.
Faith in a better tomorrow
“I welcome you only now something is happeningbeer I would not like the new owner to demolish the villa and build a new building in its place. It would be great if a decent person bought it, who would respect the morphology of architect Libra’s handwriting and Vinohrad in general,” added Jakub Svěrák from the Svépomoc association for Blesk. This was created precisely as a reaction to the demolition of the Vinohrady villa.
“In 2018, we were scared what the then owner even allowed himself to do to a listed villa in our neighborhood,” he states. “I hope we succeeded then carry out a complete demolition of the house, which is still in a condition that is dangerous to its surroundings. The previous owner probably found that he couldn’t afford everything, and so he preferred to sell the villa,” think about it.
Even ex-mayor Chmelová does not give up hope for a better fate for the villa, which also in response to illegal demolition in the Senate proposed an amendment to the Monuments Act, which tightened the fines for the intentional destruction of monuments, which has been happening across the capital in recent years. “From 4 million to 20 million for the most serious actions, and from 2 million to 10 million for those with a lower degree of danger“, she specified. In the end, the Senate did not accept the amendment. “I sure hope so the new owner of the villa will honor not only its cultural value, but also the value of the entire unique set of Vinohrady rondocubist villas by the architect Libra and will build at least a copy of it” she added.
Like a puzzle without one piece
The house dates from 1921, along with a number of others in its street as part of the Svépomoc colony, designed by architect František Albert Libra, who built, for example, a sanatorium in Vyšné Hágé or the records building of the Ústřední sociální pojišťovna above Smíchov nádraží. It’s about a unique set of houses that belong together in their architectural style – moreover, this is one of Libro’s earliest works. Like a number of villas in the vicinity, it is located in the Vinohrady, Žižkov and Vršovice preservation zones of Prague.
As far as Prague is concerned, it is about exclusive location, which, according to Jan Zachystal, is affordable comparable to, for example, Hanspaulka or Ořechovka. Only a few tens of meters from the demolished villa, Libra himself had his own villa built, in which he spent his last years. Villas were also built here by other important architects such as John Cattle or Alois Dryák, the famous sculptor Ladislav Šaloun, and last but not least, he also lived here in his “red villa” visionary and industrialist Emil Kolben whose brothers Josef and Karel Čapk.
The villa on Šafránka is awaiting a decision on its fate.
Author: Lightning