Vítězslav and Anna Horn's villa

 
Vítězslav Horn came from Brno to Jihlava as a young doctor in the early 1920s to take up the post of head of the Surgical Department of Jihlava Hospital. From the very beginning, he was actively involved in the Sokol movement and other social activities of Czech life in the town. He married Anna, a granddaughter of the Helenín manufacturer and philanthropist Karel Löw. The couple lived in the house with their two sons. In his memoirs, their eldest son, Vítězslav, who also became a doctor, described, among other things, pre-war life in the house and in Jihlava. Soon after his arrival in Jihlava, MUDrHorn was appointed director of the hospital and was instrumental in the development of the entire premises. After the death of Karel Löw, he also served as chairman of the board of directors of Helenín. He invited architects from Brno and Prague, including Bohuslav Fuchs and Karel Roštík, to help with his grandiose plans. For the interior furnishings of the Surgical Pavilion, he established cooperation with the Brno architect Bohumír F. A. Čermák, a student of Professor Otto Wagner from the Vienna Academy, to whom he also entrusted the design of his own house. The Horn family villa was built at a relatively remote end of the town, by the road leading to Humpolec, on a gentle slope on Jiráskova Street. The construction work was carried out by the Jihlava builder Heinrich Knorr.

The architect situated the four-storey house in the middle of the garden, where, besides the house, there is still a brick pergola with a roof as well as a small semi-circular swimming pool and a sand tennis court today. The entrance frontage is far from the street line, within the garden. The entrance stair hall was connected to the main lounge, dining room, and a large study with a library on the ground floor, which led directly to the terrace in the garden. The eastern part of the ground floor was occupied by the kitchen, pantry, and a small room for the maid. Upstairs were the parents' and children's bedrooms and guest rooms with separate bathrooms tiled in marble. The owners' fondness for cars was revealed by the double garage in the basement. The basement also contained a caretaker's flat, while the laundry room was placed in the attic on the upper floor. The house had a wide ventilation duct around the outer walls and a small greenhouse, which was used to store food in wartime. In its layout, the house looks somewhat chaotic and complex. Vítězslav Horn's son even described the functions of the house quite critically:"The house simply didn't provide much privacy (…), and it was difficult to maintain both staff-wise and financially."Despite this criticism, however, it is possible to see a harmoniously balanced building in terms of volume and style, based on classical symmetry, yet with a purist austere arrangement of the façades.

For his Czech patriotism, MUDrHorn was taken away by the Gestapo in September 1939 and subsequently imprisoned for six years, spending the longest time in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Anna Hornová and her children survived the entire war safely in the villa, a part of which she had to let to German tenants. Her husband, Vítězslav, survived the war in concentration camps and was one of those who testified at the Nuremberg trials. However, in 1949, MUDrHorn was removed from his position as director of the Jihlava Hospital again, this time by the Communists. In 1953, the Horns were even forbidden from staying in Jihlava and the family hastily left for Brno. Their property was confiscated. From 1960–1961, the villa was adapted into a day nursery with a capacity of fifty children. After 1989, the property was returned to the original owners, who then sold the house. The new owners sensitively renovated the entire building in the 1990s. Currently, the KESAT company is located in the villa.

JL
Literature and other sources 

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