Petschek Villa

The Petschek Villa is a palatial house in Prague, Czech Republic, built by Otto Petschek, a member of a German-speaking Jewish family with coal mining and banking interests, in the 1920s. It was constructed between 1924 and 1930 to the design of architect Max Spielmann, with the Matej Blecha construction company carrying out the building work. The Petschek family fled Prague in 1938 fearing Nazi occupation, and during the Second World War the villa served in turn as the residence of German general Rudolf Toussaint, briefly housed Soviet forces, and became the headquarters of the Czechoslovak General Staff. The United States leased the property in 1945 and purchased it outright in 1948 for 1,570,000 dollars, and it has served since as the residence of the American ambassador, first to Czechoslovakia and later to the Czech Republic. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/