Vul. Romanchuka, 15 – residential building

The villa was originally intended for one family. It has changed its function, now it is an apartment building, where part of the ground floor is rented for an office, while the second and attic floors are rented for a hotel.

The villa is located at the corner of Zelena and Romanchuka streets, its main entrance being arranged from the latter, where the building's façade fits into the row housing of the street. Zelena street is faced by a wooden veranda and a spacious garden surrounded by a transparent fence, which indicates the former purpose of the house as a villa and Zelena street as a quiet one, which was pleasant to contemplate. Romanchuka street is built up with historicist-style rental houses on both sides, and although the villa differs little in terms of its style, it is an example of another type of structure, which prevailed here previously. Both before and after the villa, Zelena street was built up with rental houses in the late 19th – the first third of the 20th centuries, so the villa of Filippina Bauer is a relic of the former manor atmosphere of the street. The development of Lviv and, consequently, the city’s population growth, caused denser construction of the street leading to the fact that a house was built later in the villa's garden, at vul. Zelena 25. This building, in contrast to the next row of housing in secession style, was built after the First World War. During the war, when the norms regarding the width of the streets were changed, it accordingly retreated from the previous building frontage line deeper into the plot.

The two-story, two-tract building with a wing and a veranda is covered with a gable roof. It has an irregular U-shape in plan, formed by the main house with the veranda and the L-shaped wing in the depth of the plot. It has a large irregularly shaped yard, consisting of a garden in front of the house facing Zelena street, the entrance and the former courtyard, bounded by the wings and the rear façade. According to a resident of the house, three old linden trees grew in the yard, the last of which was cut down in 2019. The yard is limited by an authentic wrought-iron fence with a preserved wicket and an entrance gate. The fence composition is concise, the fence consisting of rods topped with spears and S-shaped elements, which is a traditional design for villas and palaces in the second half of the 19th century (Казанцева, Сеньковська, 2008, 449-462).

The house is located on a flat plot, with the street and the yard located on the same level. According to the archival drawing, the height from the ground surface to the top cornice is 10.2 m; the distance between the ground floor bridgings is 3.2 m and between the second floor bridgings 3.5 m; the basements are 2.2 m high (DALO 2/2/3357:26).

Due to the regular shape of the plot, all premises have the shape of a rectangle or a square. On the left, the villa is adjacent to a neighboring house, there is a boundary wall and no windows there (respectively, worse insolation), while on the right, on the contrary, one can see a free area with a garden. Further, there are utility premises (connected with the wing) on the left and representative ones on the right. The division is implemented thanks to the entrance area, which consists of an entrance portal, a vestibule and a staircase leading to the second floor. An 8-step stair flight leading to the left half of the house is also arranged from the vestibule closer to the entrance. Thus, on the left there are three rooms, a kitchen and bathrooms, with a hall, a bathroom and three rooms on the right. There are also stairs leading from the courtyard to the wing with a kitchen and bathrooms, which also have 8 steps. Next to the bathrooms, there is a second, service (back) staircase.

Originally, three verandas were designed in the house, two representative one, facing Zelena and Romanchuka streets, and the third one in the courtyard adjacent to the main staircase. Only the veranda facing Zelena street has access to the street; others, apparently, were designed as winter gardens, as they had large windows. The veranda in the yard has not been preserved.

On the second floor, five rooms are grouped around a large hall that overlooks Romanchuka street. From this hall there is an exit to a wooden veranda. In everything else the second floor's layout repeats that of the ground floor. In the wing’s L-shaped protrusion, there was originally a stable and a cart shed, as well as bathrooms, until 1907. This building had originally one floor with an attic; only in 1939-1941 the second floor was added to it.

A light shaft was arranged to illuminate the premises adjacent to the boundary wall. The benefit of this was undoubted, as there was at least some natural light in the rooms next to it. Nevertheless, with no glazing, it was a source of cold and humidity during the rainy season. In 1907, in the course of a reconstruction, it was partially used for bathrooms (DALO 2/2/3357:18).

The structural frame of the house is formed by external walls, staircase walls and an internal load-bearing wall (which, traditionally for Lviv architecture, divides the house into two tracts). The section drawing of the house shows a gradual lightening of the load-bearing walls, which are twice thicker in the basement than on the attic floor (DALO 2/2/3357:27). The walls are made of brick, the verandas are wooden, the bridgings between the floors are wooden, the basement bridgings are either made of brick or have arches resting on iron I-beams). There are stoves in all rooms.

The villa is designed in the form of a rather bulky parallelepiped, slightly varied on both sides by verandas. It is still dominated by the restrained stylistics of Historicism that is somewhat at odds with the wooden, richly ornamented verandas, marking the emergence of a new style, with its interest in folk art. Few buildings of this transitional type have survived in Lviv. A similar example is Helena Dąbczanska's villa at vul. Chaikovskoho 35 (architect Jan Schulz, 1888), where, unfortunately, the wooden veranda was destroyed during repairs (Kazantseva, Lieonov, 2017, № 31, 135-148).

The horizontality of the villa's volume is emphasized by the dominance of the horizontal divisions of the two floors rustication, the cornice between the floors and the top cornice, supported by exquisite corbels. These corbels and, on a much larger scale, those under the balcony, window and portal trimmings, some details such as dentils, an egg-and-dart ornament and acanthus leaves are almost the only stucco decoration. That is, the façades were formed under the influence of classicist ideas characteristic of Joseph Engel's work, dominated by the principle of the façade plane hierarchy with a very concise interpretation of the wall parts and restrained decor in strictly defined places. The classical theme is also supported by the formal symmetrical composition of both façades. Thus, on the façade facing vul. Romanchuka, there is an entrance portal and a wooden veranda balcony on the seven-window façade's main axis, while on the sides the composition is diversified by protruded wall sections one window wide. From the side of Zelena street, the composition is emphasized by a wooden veranda located on the main axis of the two-window façade.

The second floor wooden balcony facing Romanchuka street and the veranda facing Zelena street are made in different styles, the balcony being strictly classic, with pilasters, panels, corbels and diamond rustication. If it were plastered, it would be perceived as a stone bay window, quite usual for Lviv architecture. At the moment, no old photos are available, so it is not known what was the original architectural design for this balcony. Today it is painted brown, in imitation of a wooden surface, while in a 2015 photo it was painted green. The entrance portal door is designed in the same style as the balcony. Profiled columns with sequin ornaments, diamond rustication, cornices and panels are combined with a neorenaissance wrought iron lattice in the small windows, which is characteristic of the late 19th-century doors. At the bottom of the entrance portal, there are rounded guard stones for carriage entry. The veranda is oriented toward the garden and decorated in the folk style of wooden decoration with various small "suns", "flowers", "hearts", "stars" and other geometric ornaments characteristic of the Zakopane style. However, even these folk details decorate the planes strictly defined for them between the pilasters and diamond rustication, limited by a classic cornice on corbels above. In this wooden decoration, even some medieval quadrifolia and a rococo grid can be seen, thus testifying to the equality of styles characteristic of historicism.

All wooden elements of the building are of very high quality; it can be assumed that the contractor was the well-known company Bracia Wczelak, which was very popular at the time, engaging, in particular, in carpentry works for the Galician Sejm and the Polytechnic.

The implemented façades are somewhat different from those proposed by Joseph Engel in the project drawing (DALO 2/2/3357:23). In it, the veranda facing vul. Zelena has two floors and is much larger, topped by a spectacular pediment with acroteria, while the main façade has an open stone balcony. The implemented veranda has one floor and a flat roof, while there is a wooden covered veranda on the main façade's second floor. Since all the details are of great quality and in the same style, it seems that these changes were made during the construction process. Perhaps the reason for this was the orientation of this façade toward the northwest, where the open balcony would obviously be too cold, damp and requiring glazing. According to the plan, this balcony was accessed from the living room, so there could be a winter garden there, as was often the case in Lviv villas. The project also envisaged a magnificent stucco work; in particular, in the drawing the façade overlooking Zelena street is decorated with two types of cartouches, where coats of arms could be placed; panels between the attic windows and friezes above the windows should be decorated with stucco; pediments should be rectangular, not triangular.

The main and rear façades differ in decor and form no compositional integrity, so from the outside the villa is designed rather as a tenement house of the last third of the 19th century. The staircase volume protrudes as a pentagonal prism, decorated with a window having a complex woodwork profiling. Its authentic glazing has been replaced, but it can be assumed that originally there were coloured glasses combined with etching. Such glazing is characteristic of the gates and staircase windows in buildings of the late 19th century. In a 2015 photo, smaller panes are decorated with textured glass, which is typical of the early 20th century and could have been done during the already mentioned reconstruction of the villa in 1907.

The wings have been rebuilt. Initially, the building housing the stable and the cart shed had one floor with a small window in the attic floor, where hay for horses was traditionally kept in Lviv (DALO 2/2/3357:19). Many such buildings, which have their own charm due to their harmonious proportions and interesting wooden elements, have survived in Lviv, in particular in a nearby house's courtyard, at vul. Zelena 46. Due to a reconstruction in 1939-1941 and modern insulation, the façades have lost their authentic plasticity; the authentic gate leading to the former stable was replaced by an iron one in the late 1990s, after the change of owners.

The entrance portal leads to a wide vestibule from which one can get to the staircase or go out (previously, even in a carriage) to the courtyard through a wooden door. The door leading to the courtyard is much more modest than the main façade one; it has a distinctive lattice division with glazing, like the staircase window. This glazing probably had red, green or yellow inserts with an etched pattern similar to those at vul. Hlibova 15, vul. Kotliarska 10, vul. Rutkovycha 12 and others. The passage is now paved with modern cobblestones, but originally it had a wooden plank floor with limiting pavements at the walls. The walls are divided by pilasters topped with a restrained entablature, the ceiling has rich stucco rosettes with acanthus leaves and flowers from which bronze lamps should hang. After the elimination of wooden limiting pavements, the plinth in the passage was lined with modern broken stone, which does not match the interior design stylistically. From the passage, a wooden door with wrought iron bars leads to the wooden staircase with a turned balustrade and parquet on the landings.

On the ground floor by the stairs, there is a cast metal lantern, whose top part has been lost. The columns on the balustrade turns are decorated with carved stone pine cones above and below, the lower part of the staircases is decorated with recessed panels. On the stairs, metal rings have been preserved, which were used to fix the pavement. In the archival drawing, the pedestals of the balustrade columns are decorated with vases with live plants (DALO 2/2/3357, 27). The staircase is decorated with pilasters and cornices, similar to the passage. Doors leading to individual apartments and rooms had trimmings and overdoors with friezes, corbels and carved tops. When the second floor was reconstructed and adapted for a hotel, the authentic interior elements were destroyed.

The ground floor windows had internal wooden shutters that could be folded and hid in niches in the walls. Shutters of this kind served both for protection and for blackout and were common in Lviv’s buildings in the 19th century; however, they have not survived in this villa due to the replacement of woodwork. The staircase ground floor window woodwork with a wrought iron Neo-Renaissance lattice has disappeared. The floors in the apartments were made of parquet boards with a geometric pattern in two colours of wood. Such parquets could be found in advertisements of Lviv’s carpentry workshops in the last third of the 19th century (for example, Gazeta Lwowska, 1873, No. 225).

On the ground floor was (and probably still is) an exquisite stove made of green tiles with floral ornaments, topped with a crown in the form of a semicircular pediment shaped of two opposing volutes, with a shell in the tympanum and acroteria. On the second floor, in what is now the Guest House Inn Lviv, there was a stove made of white tiles. The other stoves were rearranged many times by the previous inhabitants of the house in the period 1970-1980.