Villa Patumbah is one of the most idiosyncratic 19th-century houses in Switzerland, built in 1883–85 by Karl Grob-Zundel, a returning Swiss who had made a colonial fortune as a tobacco planter on Sumatra. The exterior is an exuberant German-Renaissance pile of turrets, carved timber and ornamental brickwork; the interior is a Wunderkammer of "exotic" themed rooms — a Moorish smoking room, a Japanese room, an Empire-style salon — each carefully decorated with imported materials and motifs.
After the family died out the building had a long career as a hospital before being threatened with demolition in the 2010s. It was rescued and now houses the Heimatschutzzentrum, a small museum about Swiss architectural heritage. Several of the original rooms have been carefully restored. Open Wednesday through Sunday afternoons; the park around the villa is open every day and free. A short tram ride east of the centre.