The villa was designed and built to construct the Jan Hus Memorial but it was also a meeting place for the Czech intelligentsia.

[1] The memorial that became a symbol of Czech self-government was dedicated to Jan Hus who was burned as a heretic in 1415 after refusing to recant his independent views.

At the end of that period the villa was occupied by a sculptor supported by commissions for busts of leading politicians like the Czechoslovakian prime minister Klement Gottwald.

which is thought to be a reference to the statement reported by the historian Xenophon of an army whose retreat from Persia took them to the security of the Black Sea coast.

[5] (Saloun's friend, the print maker Josef Vachal, said in his many writings said that there were "occult practices" that took place in the villa's basement.