Prstná Castle, Petrovice u Karviné

Small castle in Prstná in Petrovice u Karviné, Czechia is an 18th‑century Empire‑style small palace erected by Wojciech Gusnar of Komorno. Built as a two‑wing, two‑storey residence with an English‑style park, the building stood on a hill with views toward Prussian Silesia and the town of Fryštát, and it was later entered on the list of cultural monuments before 1988. Its ownership and uses across three centuries tie the house to local landed families, to the Viennese court through marriage connections, and to several public functions in the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries.

In the later 1700s Pierstna, then part of Piotrowice near Karviná, passed into the hands of Wojciech Gusnar after purchase from Count Jan Larisch. Gusnar established the L‑shaped Empire residence surrounded by a landscaped park. In 1879 the Gusnar family sold the estate back to the Larisch counts. The palace became the home of Georg Larisch and his wife Marie Luisa (also called Maria Luisa) Larisch‑Mönich, who expanded the building and maintained it as a family seat.

Marie Luisa had close ties to the Viennese imperial court and is described in local records as a favorite niece of Empress Elisabeth, known as “Sissi.” She brought Maria to the court and arranged the marriage to Georg Larisch. After the 1889 Mayerling incident, the mysterious deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf and his companion, it emerged that the countess had acted as a procurer. She was expelled from court, the marriage ended in divorce in 1896, and she moved to Bavaria. In 1893 the palace is also recorded as passing into the hands of the Larisch counts from nearby Karviná, reflecting continued family ownership in the late nineteenth century.

During land parceling in 1927 the palace together with its park was acquired by the Cieszyn Silesian Sokol (Falcon) organisation. The building was renovated and the first floor housed a Czech elementary school. In the Second World War the house served as an ammunition depot and was used as an internment camp for Poles from Silesia. In 1985 the Jednota–Jedność cooperative from Český Těšín opened a hotel and restaurant on the premises.

Legal ownership returned to the heirs of the prewar owners in 1999, and the building underwent renovation that year. In October 2012 a private company, TRESTLES s.a., purchased the property and carried out further refurbishment while preserving the original structural layout; the main access road and the park were also rebuilt. The hotel and restaurant reopened on 31 May 2013. A relaxation and spa area was added in 2014, and in 2015 the owners acquired an old park‑edge villa and converted it into a guesthouse called Villa Larisch to enlarge accommodation. In December 2017 Jolanta Burkot became sole owner by buying a partner’s shares.

Under its recent private management the complex has hosted regular cultural programmes, including quarterly art vernissages in the restaurant, a permanent display of paintings through the hotel, outdoor sculptures in the park by artists such as Blanka Matragi, seasonal open‑air cinema screenings and a community Christmas‑tree gathering. The operating enterprise received the governor’s (hetman’s) prize of the Moravian–Silesian Region twice for social responsibility in the category for firms up to 50 employees, and it placed first twice in a comparable national competition. At the time of the latest report the complex comprised 32 hotel rooms, two apartments (in the main building and in Villa Larisch), an extensive park spa, a restaurant, a large hall with banquet rooms, a bowling alley and a wine cellar.