The most comfortable mass-built residential houses of the Bata Concern, a. s., Zlín, were single-family houses. There are eleven of them in the Bata factory town of Zruč nad Sázavou. They were built in 1939-1940 as part of the first stage of the construction of family houses between today's Okružní and 5. května streets.
Most of the single-family houses were built in 5 May Street, which runs along the green avenue-park. The single-family houses were intended for higher-ranking employees, such as clerks or production managers. The Zruč single-family house corresponds in type to the single-family houses with garages built in Zlín in the second half of the 1930s. The authorship is attributed by some sources to Miroslav Drof, who headed the design department of housing construction in Zruč nad Sázavou.
A common element of the Zlín and Zruč single-family houses is the basic cubic shape of the residential building, which is extended on the ground floor by a garage and a veranda, above which there is a large terrace. A distinctive element is the wide crown cornice. The Zruč houses have one large three-part window in the living room and bedroom. Unlike in Zlín, all the houses in Zruč have been plastered. What adds to the variety of Zruč's Bata residential area is the variably designed space around the windows. Some windows are highlighted by simple framing in lighter colours, others by a wide band of exposed bricks on the sides of the windows. On some houses this space is emphasised in an embossed way, even with a darker shade of plaster. Another decorative element is the windows and garage doors painted in a combination of white and dark green.
The partially basemented single-family houses stand on concrete foundations. The upper structure is made of bricks with wooden ceilings. The floors in the living rooms were parquet, the auxiliary rooms had cement screed and the kitchen and bathroom were tiled. The houses were fully electrified and connected to the sewage and water network. The spatial design of the single-family houses corresponded to the higher living standards of their inhabitants.
On the ground floor there is a garage, the floor of which is lowered by half a metre compared to the other rooms. Behind the garage there is an entrance porch, which passes into a corridor. From the hallway it is possible to enter the pantry, bathroom with toilet, kitchen and living room, which is the largest room on the ground floor (20 m²). From the living room, a staircase leads to a small hallway which leads to the terrace, the guest room and a pass-through bedroom leading to the children's room. The proportions of the bedroom are similar to the living room, while the children's room and the guest room are more modest at around 8 m².
A generous terrace runs the full width of the house (26 m²). The clear height of the rooms is 2.7 m, or 3.2 m in the garage. The total living area of the house is about 90 m², with the garage and terrace about 130 m². The bathroom included a bath, a washbasin and a toilet, and the house also included a spa stove and a boiler for laundry.
After the nationalisation of the Bata company, the residential houses became the property of the national company Sázavan. In 1951-1955, flat roofs were replaced by hipped roofs in the entire residential area. In the 1970s, the single-family houses were sold into private hands. Due to the generous design of the living space, the single-family houses were rebuilt to a lesser extent than other residential buildings in the Bata development. However, they did not escape the replacement of original windows and insulation of facades. In several of the single-family houses, the original appearance was completely covered by a coloured facade. Some owners, however, have sought to preserve original features, such as highlighting windows.
