Pałac w Rozalinie

Pałac w Rozalinie in Rozalin, Poland is a nineteenth-century palace and park complex erected by members of the Polish landed gentry. Built in the first half of the 1800s in the Classicist manner, the house became a local center of elite residence and later served civic, educational and cultural purposes, while also becoming the subject of protracted ownership disputes in the late twentieth century.

Construction began around 1847 and was completed before 1857 at the initiative of Aleksandra Rzewuska, wife of Wacław Rzewuski and daughter of Rozalia Lubomirska, who was executed in 1794 during the French Revolution. The main building reflects the restrained classical vocabulary fashionable at the time and was raised as a summer residence for the family.

Ownership changed several times through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1864 the estate passed into the hands of Berek and Izaak Lichtenbaum. A later purchase in 1879 brought the property to Stefania (née Ilińska) Laska, spouse of a banking director in Saint Petersburg; under her stewardship the palace was likely altered by a next-generation architect from the same family who had originally designed the house. In 1892 Maria (née Kwilecka) Zawiszyna acquired the grounds; she left the estate in 1910 to her daughter Magdalena Radziwiłł. Part of the smaller Rozalin area, including the palace and park, was bought in 1923 by Dr. Kazimierz Rakowski and subsequently inherited by his daughter Bronisława Stankiewiczowa.

In 1949 Bronisława Stankiewiczowa was dispossessed of the property by state action, after which several rooms were adapted for the needs of the Federation of Socialist Youth Unions of Poland. In 1976 the filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi used the house as a location for the film Barwy ochronne (Camouflage). Between 1981 (or 1982) and 1992 the site hosted the Central People’s University, an institution that built pavilions for students in the park area and ran seminars and courses in culture and education, including instructor training for film dissemination beginning in 1987.

A complex legal contest over ownership unfolded from the 1990s into the early 2000s. In 1993 the Minister of Agriculture, Gabriel Janowski, annulled the 1948 takeover; the Supreme Administrative Court subsequently upheld that decision. In 1994 Bronisława Stankiewiczowa re-entered the property with security staff. After her death later that year the palace passed to her son. In 1996 the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed Krystyna Krysowska as owner of the palace and park. A later minister reversed a predecessor’s decision, but the Supreme Administrative Court overturned that ministerial action and returned the case for reconsideration; in 2001 the court ordered the minister of agriculture to resolve the matter. In 2003 the palace and its 24-hectare park were sold to Anna Molgo.

During the first decade of the twenty-first century the National Bank of Poland used the mansion for conferences and carried out roof repairs. Since 2016 the complex has operated in a hospitality capacity: the main house offers a small number of guest rooms and an additional boutique hotel, Parkowa Sypialnia, was constructed on the grounds with seventeen rooms. Between 2018 and 2020 the property served as the filming location for three seasons of the television programme Projekt Lady (TVN).