Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
The archival stack of documents that resulted from the police investigations when the neighbour, Ferenc Révay, denounced the establishment for disturbing the peace, reveals that in the summer it was a big band that played music in the pavilion and that the lessee, Samuel Sándor Rosner, was contriving at having the ensemble of Johann Strauss accept his invitation in spring 1884, or at least wished to improve his standing in court by citing the wished-for visit. In its original shape, the night club did not live to see the Millenary Celebrations, because the 306-square-fathom area neighbouring Révay ’s plot, where the musical pavilion itself stood, was detached from the property. It was here that another pavilion was erected, the one in which the public could view Mihály Munkácsy's painting Ecce Homo during the Millenary Celebrations for an entrance fee of 50 krajcár (farthings). The rented villa standing to this day at No. 127 was built in 1897. The days of the Bellevue were numbered. Within a month of the purchase, in February 1904, the new proprietor, building contractor Hermann Babocsay, requested an official permit of demolition (for the "dilapidated and old-fashioned 'Bellevue'", as Ágai described it), and proceeded to further subdivide the remaining bit of land and build a two-storey villa on the section towards And rássy út and a three-storey one on the Aréna-út side designed by Aladár Árkay. The Babocsay Villa was one of the finest architectural attractions of Budapest in the first decade of the 20th century. Its excessive Art Nouveau forms (there were not two identical windows on the building) and its colourful ceramic ornamentation divided public opinion. It had its enthusiastic supporters, while others were irritated by the sight. Béla Lázár was driven into poetic raptures writing about it in the columns of Művészet (Art) in 1910. "Approaching." he says, "the last villa, owned by Babocsay and designed by Aladár Árkay. on Andrássy út with the attention appropriate to a work of art. one will come under its spell all of a sudden. One will tente that what one is confronted with is the work of an artiit of refined, and what is more, specifically Hungarian, iemibilitiei; an artiit who thinki in original images. Quiet tunes of serene and yet lively and graceful rhythms drift towards us. We can feel the harmony which was created by the meeting of the minds of a modern proprietor and an architect who understands modem man. and this harmony gave birth to singular beauty." The beauty that captured Béla Lázár and his contemporaries equally enthusiastic about innovation had turned out to be quite unbearable by the twenties. And that was the nemesis of the Babocsay Villa. Its new owner had it rebuilt inside-out in 1926. Architect Lajos Kozma commissioned with the work removed everything that was original about the building; the windows he re-tailored in a uniform pattern, the gable and the corner dome he pulled down, the roof he 61
