The precursor of the villa of the factory manager in Zruč on a triangular-shaped plot of land near the factory grounds was probably the villa of Stanislav Landa in Zlín, which was built as an individual family house to accommodate a high-ranking Bata employee. In Zlín, he was the founder and head of the chemical research institute of the Bata concern, a. s., Zlín.
The appearance of the exterior of the building in Zlín and Zruč is almost identical, apart from the later addition and the solid brickwork, which is typical of Zlín buildings. The interior layout also suggests that the zruč director's villa was built to an identical design as the Landova villa in Zlín. While the Zlín villa was roofed with a hipped roof at the time of its construction, after a change of design, the zruč plant manager's house did not receive it until the 1950s. Both villas were built in 1939. The Zruč villa was handed over for use on 25 May 1940.
The entrance to the director's villa is defined by a wide staircase flanked by a graduated concrete wall with a wider cornice. The staircase transitions into a small terrace with the entrance to the house, which is flanked by shallow pilasters and covered by a smaller canopy. The front door leads into a small hallway faced with polished stone. The hallway opens into a stair hall, from which doors lead to a study, a living room with fireplace and kitchen, a toilet and a staircase to the basement. The hall has been lined to door level with larch wood and fitted with built-in wardrobes. There was also a dining room on the ground floor, accessible from the kitchen and via a wide passageway from the living room. The service part of the house contained the kitchen, the pantry and a small room for the maid. The larch double staircase was illuminated by a tall, so-called American window.
The upper living floor had a guest room and two bedrooms, one of which was accessed from a closet that connected the bedroom to the bathroom, hallway, and terrace. There were built-in wardrobes in the dressing room and guest room. There was parquet flooring in the living rooms and tiled flooring in the kitchen. The kitchen and bathroom were tiled. An interesting detail is the ceramic tiling with a sculpted hanger or soap dish.
The basement contained a garage, two cellars, a laundry with drying room and a boiler room with coal storage. The house was equipped with a boiler connected to the domestic central heating, an electric boiler for heating water, a bathtub, a bidet, two toilets, four sinks and a two-piece sink. The foundations of the building were concrete, the upper structure was brick including partitions. The roof was originally a flat, cardboard roof, but was replaced in the first half of the 1950s with a hipped roof of red tiles. The plaster was smooth, brizolitic, without the brick elements found on other houses.
After the Second World War and the transformation of the Bata concern into a national enterprise, a cultural house with a library, reading room and rooms for the Czech Youth Association, the Club of Graduates of the Bata School of Labour and the amateur photography club were established in the villa. Shortly afterwards, the factory doctor's office (living room) and the specialist's office (dining room and kitchen) were located in the villa. As the utility functions changed, the villa was modified, especially in the interior: the partition between the hall and the study (now the waiting room) was broken through and, on the other hand, the living room was divided into two parts (nurse and doctor). In 2015, the windows were replaced, the building was insulated and a wheelchair ramp was added to the main entrance. The interior was also renovated in 2020, during which all the original elements were removed. Subsequently, a major renovation took place in 2022, when the basic form of the villa was changed by building a terrace. Major changes were made to the internal layout of the building, including the addition of a lift. The original modernist appearance has therefore been completely lost under the weight of modern renovations. Today, the villa still serves as a doctors' surgery.
