Quodbach Villa (Restaurant)

The villa was built in 1876. It was designed by C. J. Decker. It was one of the first villas built in the upscale Westend neighborhood on Wojska Polskiego Avenue. Its first owner was the businessman Quodbach. By 1885, a carriage house, a stable, and a two-story service building with a basement had been added to the property. The first floor of the service building housed a dining room, the lady’s room, a parlor, a kitchen, and a reception room. The second floor, in turn, consisted of studies, restrooms, and bathrooms. The villa was surrounded by a magnificent garden. By 1903, the villa had changed hands three times. Its owners were, in order, Dr. Wegner, a German secret service official named Delbrück, and finally Elżbieta Korte, a native of Szczecin. Upon acquiring the villa, she decided to build an annex next to it, which still stands there today. Electricity was installed in the villa in 1919. The basement sits on a large plinth. It was once used as a laundry room and storage area. A distinctive feature of the villa is the portico located at the front of the facade. The top level of the building is a mezzanine (a small floor between the main stories). The windows are adorned with pilasters topped with Ionic capitals. Their lower sections, in turn, feature decorative panels. After the war, the building became the headquarters of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society, which installed a stained-glass window there as a symbol of the good relations between the two cities: Szczecin in Poland and Riga in Latvia. For a time, the building also housed a café and a movie theater. Currently, it is home to a restaurant.