Villa Jahr, Cultural heritage monument in Gera, Germany

Villa Jahr is a two-story residential building in the Heinrichsgrün district of northern Gera, designed by architect Rudolf Schmidt and set within spacious grounds. The mansion features a mansard roof and combines private living spaces with grand rooms for entertaining.

Villa Jahr was built from 1905 to 1907 for Moritz Rudolf Jahr, son and heir of machine-building entrepreneur Ernst Moritz Jahr, to designs by Gera architect Rudolf Schmidt. In 1945 the family was expropriated, and the villa first served as the residence of the Soviet city commandant, later as a children's home and as a boarding house for today's Goethe-Gymnasium. Since 2024 new private owners have been restoring it to its original state to house start-ups and connect them with investors.

The villa was built in the Historicist style for Moritz Rudolf Jahr, heir to the mechanical engineering firm of Ernst Moritz Jahr. Its grounds were laid out as an English landscape garden; during the 2007 Federal Garden Show this garden held an exhibition on grave design, while the villa served as the exhibition building of the Bund deutscher Friedhofsgärtner.

The property is easily accessible on foot and connected to the adjacent Hofwiesenpark by a pedestrian bridge for exploring both locations. Allow time to wander through the surrounding grounds, as the park is an important part of the full experience.

For the 2007 Bundesgartenschau, a new footbridge called the Textimasteg was built to link the villa's English landscape park with the Hofwiesenpark exhibition grounds. The park itself was given over to displays on grave design by the Bund deutscher Friedhofsgärtner, while the villa served as their exhibition building.