Claaszen Villa in Sopot

Please note (as of October 2026): the Sopot Museum in Claaszen Villa is being renovated. Work is due to finish at the end of 2026, and until then the collections are not on display – events and outdoor exhibitions take place elsewhere in town.

First the home of a Gdańsk art collector, then a summer retreat for the communist elite, and finally the town museum. Claaszen Villa stands right by the beach, on the corner of ul. Poniatowskiego and al. Wojska Polskiego – a street that locals nicknamed "Bigwigs' Avenue" after the war. The villa itself picked up the nickname "bierutówka", after Poland's post-war leader Bolesław Bierut.

History: from a Gdańsk merchant to Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz

Ernst August Claaszen came from a wealthy Gdańsk family of Flemish origin. He traded in sugar and machinery, worked as an insurance broker, served as American consul and collected art. In 1902 he bought a plot on what was then Parkstrasse, and between September 1903 and spring 1904 a three-storey house with turrets and oriels, like a small palace, was built here to a design by the architect Walter Schulz. When a street was laid out across the estate in 1910, it was named Ernststrasse after the owner. The economic crisis after the First World War ruined Claaszen; he took his own life in 1924, and his widow and daughter gradually sold off the family property.

In 1928 the villa was bought by Oskar Meltzner, owner of the Vulkan iron foundry in Gdańsk. In early 1945 the Meltzner family fled Sopot by sea, and on 23 March the Red Army took the town. After the war the house was taken over by the office of President Bolesław Bierut. Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, the government's delegate for the coast, lived here, and later Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz often stayed with his wife, the actress Nina Andrycz. Until 1980 the villa belonged to a government holiday complex – there was even a special passage to the neighbouring military rest home. In 1981 it passed to the town, from 1984 to 2000 it housed a counselling centre for children and families, and since 2001 it has been the home of the Sopot Museum.

What to see

• The building itself – eclectic, with a brick base, a half-timbered oriel, turrets with metal domes and a surrounding garden.
• 19th- and 20th-century middle-class interiors furnished with the Claaszen family's legacy: furniture, decorative arts and English prints.
• The Delft faience collection from the 17th to 19th centuries, displayed almost in full in the villa's dining room.
• An English wine cooler from the third quarter of the 18th century – a rare piece in Polish collections.
• Spa-town collections: souvenir glasses from the resort, holiday keepsakes, swimwear and around 2,000 postcards of old Sopot.

Tripto tip

Until the museum reopens you can only see the villa from outside – it looks best from the garden side and from al. Wojska Polskiego, a few steps from the beach. Before the renovation the museum's website listed opening hours from Tuesday to Sunday (May–September 10:00–18:00, October–April 10:00–16:00), a standard ticket at PLN 15 and free admission on Sundays; check whether these still apply once it reopens. The building has a lift to the ground- and first-floor galleries and wheelchair-accessible toilets. Allow about an hour for the interiors and combine your visit with a walk on the beach.