Villa Clementine, Wiesbaden

Villa Clementine is a villa in the style of historicism in Wiesbaden.

It was built in 1878-1882 by the architect Georg Friedrich Fürstchen for the Mainz entrepreneur Ernst Meyer. Meyer bought the property on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Frankfurter Strasse in 1877 for his wife Clementine, who died shortly before the completion of the villa named after her. In 1888, the villa was the focus of world attention when the Wiesbaden Prince Robbery took place here. Meyer sold the building with its Roman-Pompeiian elements in 1890.

In 1960 it came into the possession of the city of Wiesbaden. Soon after, there were urban planning considerations to demolish the villa for planning in the sense of a car-oriented city. In 1965, Ernst May, the planning commissioner at the time, envisaged building a subway station in its place. These plans were abandoned; in 1973 the city decided to use the villa for cultural purposes.

In 1978, Hessischer Rundfunk filmed parts of the eleven-part film version of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks there. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the villa has been used for events, serves as a literary house and is home to the Wiesbaden Press Club. The Villa Clementine café is located on the upper floor. There are public bookcases both in the café's Blue Salon and in the garden.