Gábor Eszter: Andrássy Avenue – Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)
handhul of conhidants were aware oh the origins of his princely gihts. which were known to the general public, and indeed registered in the annals oh the museum, as the presents oh Anonymous." Besides Révay's gold and silverware collection, it was his arms collection that was believed to be of the greatest value. Recorded in an old cadastre register is the fact that his two nieces eventually won the inheritance case, and the villa on Andrássy út was entered under their names in 1920. Between the wars the villa was used as a residence, but after World War 11 it was turned into office space allocated to the Patriotic People's Front. Currently the weekly magazine Heti Válasz (Weekly Reply) is edited on the premises. Except for the fact that its red-brick fafade has been plastered over, the villa has remained virtually unchanged in appearance. Compared to the relatively small plots on the row of villas, the last two were exceptionally large. At their largest, the one on the left was 1,551, the other on the right 815 square fathoms. The Sugárút Construction Company wanted a trend-setting villa to be built on each plot. The one on the left, on the site of today's No. 132 Andrássy út, was indeed a grandiose mansion. Built to plans by the Stuttgart architect Adolf Gnaut, the villa featured sgraffiti designed by the also Stuttgart-born Lajos Rauscher, an artist mentioned more than once above. The uncommonly tall, porticoed, two-storey structure stood in a large garden, which was progressively getting finer and finer with time, as testified by archive photographs. The villa was bought from the company in 1890 by a general of the cavalry, Baron Lipót Edelsheim-Gyulay. He left the property to his son of the same name, who sold it during the summer of 1900. The building, together with 833 square fathoms of the garden went to one buyer, while the remaining 718 square fathoms of the garden was purchased by another. Soon enough, the new owners further subdivided the property until no more than 560 square fathoms of land was left around the building, which was then surrounded by three new houses built in a few years' time (No. 130 Andrássy út, No. 96 Aréna út/Dózsa György út, and the building of the French Embassy at No. 27 Lendvay utca). The villa was virtually walled in. That was how Baron Frigyes Born and his heir resided in the increasingly anachronistic building until 1942, when Gyula Frigyes Born had it pulled down and commissioned Miklós Réczey to design a 14-flat villa in its place. The concave fafade was built to blend into the cityscape rather than help fulfil the function of the building. Two plane trees standing on the Heroes' Square side are reminders of the huge garden of yore. Until 1886, the large villa opposite (designed by Antal Weber) was owned by the Sugárút Construction Company, which let it to tenants, who operated a nightclub called Bellevue. According to Adolf Ágai, "older babies suck the her-58
