Wola-Chojnata Palace

The Palace in Wola-Chojnata, Wola-Chojnata, Poland, is a neo-Renaissance country house erected in 1873 by a Polish landowning family. Built in the late nineteenth century, the house became the principal residence of the Wierzbicki family and later played changing roles under shifting political administrations, giving it local significance as both an aristocratic home and, in the twentieth century, a public institution.

The estate on which the palace stands entered modern records in 1801 when Stanisław Woyczyński purchased it. He retained ownership for nineteen years before selling to Ignacy Woyczyński in 1820. During the 1820s the property passed among several members of the Woyczyński family, including Antoni and Jan, and in 1826 it was again in the hands of Stanisław Woyczyński, described at that time as a former division general in the Polish army.

In 1861, following the death of Wincenty Rembowski, a former Polish army captain, the estate was left by testament to Józef Wierzbicki. The Wierzbicki family commissioned the present palace, which was completed in 1873, and Józef and his wife Jadwiga were the recorded first owners of the new house. The property remained associated with the Wierzbicki family through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Economic pressures in the interwar period led to a public sale in 1931, when the Land Credit Society in Warsaw placed the estate at auction. At a subsequent sale the property returned to family ownership under Eleonora Zofia Wierzbicka. After the Second World War, a decree of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) enacted agrarian reform that transferred large private estates into the State Treasury; the palace and its lands became state property in 1945.

Under state ownership after the war, the palace was adapted to community use, housing a primary school and providing apartments for teachers. In 1978 the park and in 1979 the palace itself were entered in the national register of monuments, giving the site formal recognition and protection. In 1980 the University of Łódź took over the ensemble intending to establish a House of Creative Work and a training and recreation center; after four years of stalled renovation the property passed to the Main School of Planning and Statistics and then to municipal authorities.

Local administration sold the estate in May 1989 to Krzysztof Malarecki. Major restoration work began in 2001 and concluded in May 2004 under the supervision of the conservator of monuments. Since renovation the property has been privately owned by Monika and Andrzej Majchrowski and has operated as a hotel and cultural venue hosting conferences, exhibitions, artistic events and private functions. In 2005 the palace received an award from the Minister of Culture and Art and the General Conservator of Monuments as the best-restored monument in Poland.