Veszter Gábor: Villas in Budapest. From the compromise of 1867 to the beginning of World War II - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1997)
utca was purchased to house the City Gallery. The Batthyány Mansion on Teréz körút was acquired by the Frankfurt Insurance Institute. But the fate of the Karácsony Mansion in the Krisztinaváros district, the Wodi- áner Mansion on Liszt Ferenc tér and of the largest villa of the residential sector of Andrássy út, the Edelsheim- Gyulai Villa mentioned earlier, was by far the saddest of all - they were all demolished. The maintenance expenses of enormous buildings were by then too high to be covered. But tastes had also changed. Gardens were in favour again and distances were not a problem any more, so the prices of the barely urbanised territories of Buda rapidly shot up. The villas of the residential area around Andrássy út had had their day. Being the owner of a villa on Andrássy út was once considered to be the ultimate symbol of wealth and a high living standard, wrote Pesti Futár in September 1935. Andrássy út, Bajza utca and Lendvay utca were all part of the millionaires’ district. Today’s estate agents usually make a discouraging gesture when they speak of this area. The beautiful villas stand empty, their gardens are left to ruin, and the streets are unswept. Walls are crumbling down, plaster is peeling off, dust and cobwebs are invading the large globes of the elegant lights on the lavish terraces trained with climbing plants, and a sad atmosphere of abandon is spreading around the gates. [...] Trim gardens and elegant windows still exist, but empty villas are becoming a common sight on Andrássy út. [...] Andrássy út, together with Stefánia út have grown out of fashion. Nobody wants to live near the City Park any more. Ninety-five out of a hundred villas are purchased in Buda, and ninety-five villas up for sale out of a hundred are situated in the area around Andrássy út. [...] Villas are built in Buda exclusively, Rózsadomb and Pasarét are the areas in vogue nowadays. The most elegant villas of the time were built on regular plots of just over 2000 square metres on the slopes of Gellért Hill. Building plots of 1400 square metres were permitted on the southern slope, and apartment villas had already made their appearance among the earlier one-family villas. Areas such as Rózsadomb and Pasarét, where building sites had appeared in the years preceding the war came into full swing by the beginning of the thirties. 38
