Szentimrei Villa

The Szentimrei Villa was built in 1925. As the text on the principal beam notes: “This house was built by the grace of God, the kindness of Grandfather / for Ágnes and Judit based on Károly Kós’s plans in A.D. 1925.” At that time only the north-western wing of the building was completed. It functioned as a vacation house until 1937, when the Szentimrei family moved out to Sztána, and it became necessary to add the square tower that was included in Károly Kós’s 1925 plan. In that same year (1937) Károly Kós’s third and last house is built in the Sztána valley: the vacation house directly next to the train station, designed for his sister Szidónia Kós and her family.

If we consider that the Varjúvár (Crow Castle) was expanded with a new wing in 1925, the year in which the Szentimrei Villa was built, and that the vacation house was built in 1937 when the Szentimrei Villa was expanded, it becomes apparent that the three Sztána houses “supported each other” as they developed into their current form. Due to the increase in the number of people living in the Szentimre Villa (Jenő Szentimrei moves his elderly mother out to Sztána), the house was also enlarged: in 1942 a one-bedroom apartment was built, plastered to the tower’s north-eastern façade. It was built over the existing earth-covered cellar, which explains its slight angle when compared to the rest of the building.