The Residents

The Beer Family

In 1929, Julius Beer, co-owner of the Berson rubber factory, and his wife Margarethe commissioned Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach to design a house that would allow for receiving guests, especially for musical soirées. Frank and Wlach proceeded to design a house that lived up to their visionary ideals, at the heart of which stood a Bösendorfer grand piano.

Unfortunately, financial difficulties forced the Beers to relinquish the house and property to the financing insurance company as early as 1932. Until 1937, however, they retained the right to rent out the house in order to service repayments. The various tenants during those years were well-known figures who certainly appreciated the musical potential of the house. Richard Tauber, Jan Kiepura, Martha Eggert, and her secretary Marcel Prawy, lived in the house until they were expelled from the country in 1938. 

The Beer family was able to flee to the US, except for their daughter Elisabeth Beer. Due to her slight walking disability after a battle with polio, she was denied a visa due to strict US immigration policies. In May 1942 she was deported from Vienna to Minsk and murdered in Maly Trostinec. 

The Pöschmann Family

In 1941, the Pöschmann family, from southern Bohemia, purchased Villa Beer together with the original furnishings, which were brought back into the house. After the war, they rented the property to the British Army until 1954. This ensured the best possible preservation of the house and its furnishings in the post-war years. Over the years, the house was divided into several units, accommodating up to five separate apartments. Luckily, this hardly affected the building fabric and structure.

Villa Beer remained the property of the Pöschmann family and descendants until 2008. 

Dr. Strohmayr Private Foundation 
In 2008, the Dr. Strohmayer Private Foundation first acquired a percentage and eventually the entire building, intending to use it as a residence which, however, never came to pass. Unfortunately, a significant amount of the furniture was also given away during those years, with most of the remaining pieces staying the property of the Pöschmann family descendants.

Until 2021, Villa Beer stood more or less vacant. During these years, Dr. Strohmayer often opened the villa to host guided tours and open-house events in cooperation with the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W) and the MAK. In 2017, the façade and roof were restored in collaboration with the Federal Monuments Office to prevent further damage to the structure.

Multiple attempts to sell the house to the City of Vienna or the Republic of Austria in order to make it accessible to the public as a museum were unsuccessful. 

Villa Beer Foundation
In 2021, this situation created an opportunity for the Villa Beer Foundation to acquire the house and realize its own vision of a home museum. In spring 2024, following three years of preparatory work—including detailed conservation studies of all materials and surfaces—renovations began that continued until December 2025. We look forward to welcoming our first guests starting in March 2026!

More articles: 
The architects Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach 
More than a House