Češka Vila – The Story of a Landmark at the Entrance to Vis

From Vila Topić to Češka Vila – A Century of Change 

For more than a century, a villa stood among the trees on the Sveti Juraj peninsula at the entrance to Vis Bay. Its position made it difficult to miss from the sea: vessels approaching Vis passed the peninsula before the full harbour opened ahead.

Generations on the island came to know the building as Češka Vila, the Czech Villa. Yet that name belongs to only one period in a much longer history. The house began as Vila Topić, built around the turn of the 20th century by Serafin Topić, mayor of Vis and a prominent figure in the island’s shipping economy. After the First World War it became a Czechoslovak holiday retreat, and after the Second World War it was absorbed into the military infrastructure of socialist Yugoslavia. The original villa was demolished in 2022, and the site is now part of a large hotel development.

The story of Češka Vila is therefore also the story of Sveti Juraj itself: a small peninsula where religious, military, maritime and tourism history overlap within a few hundred metres.

Sveti Juraj at the entrance to Vis Bay

Sveti Juraj forms the eastern side of the entrance to Vis Bay. Its position gave it strategic importance long before Vila Topić was built. A Venetian view from the early 17th century shows the peninsula controlling the approach to the harbour, with a structure on its summit that may have been a fortification or lookout.

The peninsula takes its name from the Church of St George. The present church dates mainly from the 14th century and was built on the site of an older 11th-century church. Archaeological work carried out during restoration between 1997 and 1999 also uncovered material from the 2nd or 1st century BC, demonstrating activity here long before the medieval building. The same research suggests that a settlement with an earlier church may have existed in the area by the 6th century, although this remains an archaeological interpretation rather than a certainty.

This concentration of different periods is characteristic of Sveti Juraj. The church, cemetery, former military structures, Grandovac and the later villa all occupy a landscape that has repeatedly changed function while retaining its importance at the harbour entrance.

British rule and the cemetery at Sveti Juraj

The Napoleonic Wars brought another layer to the peninsula. Britain occupied Vis from 1811 to 1815 after defeating French naval forces near the island, using Vis as an important base for operations in the Adriatic.

British sailors who died during this period were buried in a small cemetery on Sveti Juraj. The rectangular burial ground remains enclosed by a stone wall, with later memorials commemorating British officers and sailors, including men from HMS Victorious who died during fighting with the French ship Rivoli in 1812.

When the British withdrew in 1815 and Austrian rule returned, the peninsula retained its military importance. Austrian authorities planned new defences for Vis harbour, including artillery positions and a small barracks with a cistern on Sveti Juraj. The first Austrian cadastral survey from 1835 confirms that the barracks had been built. At the time, the peninsula was far less wooded than it later became: pasture occupied parts of the headland, while vineyards and cultivated land extended across nearby slopes.

From Austrian barracks to Vila Topić

By the late 19th century, the military role of the site was changing. Austrian authorities demilitarised Vis in 1888, and the barracks on Sveti Juraj was abandoned. That opened the way for a very different use of the peninsula.

Serafin Topić later acquired the property. He served as mayor of Vis from 1895 to 1918 and owned the island’s first steamship company, founded in 1891. Around the turn of the century, he built a country residence on the site of the former barracks.

Known as Vila Topić, the house was designed as a seaside residence rather than a defensive building. The 2015 conservation study describes a broad ground floor facing the sea, neostyle stone details and an enclosed garden. Its location mattered as much as its architecture. Standing close to the water at the mouth of the harbour, the villa gradually became a visual marker on the approach to Vis.

That relationship with the harbour would survive every later change of use.

How Vila Topić became Češka Vila

After the First World War, the Topić family sold the property. The subsequent owners soon sold it to the Czechoslovak Railways, which converted the former private residence into a holiday retreat. From this period onward, the house became known as Češka Vila. A photograph reproduced in the conservation study shows it under that identity by 1930.

This gives the villa an interesting place in the early tourism history of Vis. Visitors from Central Europe were staying on Sveti Juraj decades before international tourism became a major island industry. The property represented a form of organised holiday travel very different from the hotels, private accommodation and online booking economy that developed much later.

The Czech connection did not last forever, but the name did. Even after the building became military property, Češka Vila remained the name by which it was widely known on Vis.

War and the return of the military

During the Second World War, Vis once again became a major military position. After Italy’s surrender in 1943, the island developed into an important Partisan and Allied base. British personnel were again buried in the cemetery at Sveti Juraj, adding another wartime layer to a burial ground created during a much earlier conflict.

The end of the war did not bring the peninsula back to its pre-war role. Under socialist Yugoslavia, Vis became one of the most heavily militarised islands in the Adriatic, with barracks, tunnels, artillery positions, storage facilities and restricted areas distributed across the island.

Češka Vila was incorporated into this system and used as a barracks. New artillery positions were constructed on the rocks above the sea, storage buildings appeared along the shore and a concrete sports ground was created on the peninsula. The Church of St George was used as a warehouse, while an underground naval-mine store was constructed east of Grandovac.

The changes were substantial, but they did not erase the older landscape. Church, cemetery, villa and military structures continued to stand beside one another, each belonging to a different period in the history of Vis.

After the Yugoslav military left

The military period ended at the close of May 1992. There is a small discrepancy between official local sources over the exact date: the City of Vis marks 30 May as the departure of the Yugoslav military, while the 2015 conservation study gives 31 May. It is therefore safer to describe the withdrawal as taking place at the end of May 1992 rather than forcing an exact date where the sources differ.

After the withdrawal, many former military properties across Vis were left without an immediate civilian purpose. Češka Vila deteriorated over the following decades, while vegetation spread through parts of the grounds and the former artillery positions and other military structures remained around the peninsula.

The Church of St George followed a different course. It was restored between 1997 and 1999 and returned to religious use, while a former military building on the shore became home to the Vis sailing club. By 2015, however, the conservation study described Vila Topić–Češka Vila and the associated military structures as heavily degraded and without a use.

Why the villa mattered to Vis Bay

The City of Vis commissioned a conservation study of the Češka Vila area in 2015 as part of planning for its future development. The study did not evaluate the villa in isolation. It considered the whole Sveti Juraj landscape, including the Church of St George, the British cemetery, Grandovac, traditional buildings, military remains, vegetation and the relationship between the peninsula and Vis Bay.

Within that setting, Vila Topić was identified as an important spatial accent. The study described the peninsula and surrounding coastline as a highly valuable historic landscape and recommended restoring the villa within its existing dimensions and preserving its visual relationship with the harbour.

That helps explain the attachment many people developed to the building even as its condition worsened. Its importance was not simply architectural. It stood where people arriving by sea repeatedly saw it, and over generations it became part of the familiar outline of the harbour entrance.

Demolition and a new development

Plans to turn the wider Češka Vila zone into a hotel and tourism complex had been developing for years. Government investment documents from 2014 and 2017 envisaged adapting the existing villa and adding new accommodation and hospitality facilities. The 2015 conservation study likewise recommended restoration rather than removal of Vila Topić.

In March 2022, however, the original building was demolished. The demolition attracted considerable local and regional attention because of the villa’s age, location and recognised role in the landscape. The mayor at the time said the building’s structural condition required its removal and that a replacement would reproduce its appearance.

Work on the wider project had begun in 2021. The contractor currently describes it as the construction of Hotel Grandovac and Češka Vila, with a new Grandovac hotel and a reconstructed Češka Vila containing eight hotel rooms, a restaurant and lobby bar. The contractor lists September 2021 as the start of construction but does not currently publish a completion date.

The development remains active. In July 2026, Splitsko-Dalmatinska County published concession documentation concerning construction and commercial use of part of the coastal and marine area within the Češka Vila tourism zone.

For that reason, the present-day section of this article should remain cautious. The project is still evolving, and details about completion, operation and public access should be checked again before publication updates.

A peninsula with many histories

It is tempting to tell the story of Češka Vila simply as the rise and fall of one old house. Sveti Juraj is more interesting than that.

Long before the villa existed, the peninsula contained a church, burial ground, agricultural land and military positions overlooking the entrance to Vis Bay. British sailors were buried here during the Napoleonic Wars, Austrian troops occupied a barracks on the headland, and Serafin Topić later turned the same site into a private residence. Czechoslovak visitors transformed Vila Topić into Češka Vila, before the Yugoslav military converted it back into part of a defensive landscape.

The original building no longer survives. Yet the reason Češka Vila mattered is still visible in the geography of the place: Sveti Juraj remains the headland passed by vessels entering Vis Bay, surrounded by traces of periods that repeatedly changed the island.

The current development adds another layer. It should neither erase nor replace the earlier ones in the story we tell about the site.

Sources & further reading

• City of Vis – Conservation Study for the Češka Vila Tourism Zone, 2015
  The principal source for the history of Sveti Juraj, Vila Topić, Češka Vila, the church, British cemetery and military use of the peninsula.
• Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets – Češka Vila project documentation
  Official documentation on the proposed tourism redevelopment and treatment of the existing buildings.
• Texo Molior – Hotel Grandovac and Češka Vila
  Current contractor information on the development, including construction start and planned hotel uses.
• Splitsko-Dalmatinska County – Češka Vila maritime concession, 2026
  Current official documentation relating to the coastal part of the tourism project.
• Tportal – Demolition of Češka Vila, March 2022
  Contemporary reporting documenting the demolition of the original villa and the stated plan to replace it with a similar building.