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December 5th, 2008

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Country's castles face fix-up woes

Zámek Blatná's owner lobbies for funding of cultural monuments

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 4th, 2008 issue

Photo courtesy of Prague Leaders Magazine

Baroness Jana Germenis, pictured with her husband Spiros (left) and Army General Karel Pezl, co-owns Blatná Castle and knows firsthand the joys and pitfalls of running a historic site. enlarge

COURTESY PHOTO

Fallow deer are one of Blatná Castle's attractions. Germenis (right), often brings visitors to feed them. enlarge

Blatná Castle is like something out of a fairytale — its timbered tower stands watch over a moat and the surrounding town.

But the most interesting piece of the picture may be the small, white metal plaque of the Association of Owners of Castles and Manor Houses, No. 001, which is mounted at the entrance arch.

One reason it’s there is because Jana Germenis (maiden name Hildprandt), co-owner of the south Bohemian castle located about 95 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Prague, is the association’s president. The group is now close to 60 members strong and is actively recruiting more castle owners. Germenis’ mother, sister and she got the Blatná property back in restitution in 1990.

On the plaque is a red lion, flanked by the outlines of two gray castles. It was created by members to draw attention to funding and preservation needs of castles around the country.

“Each of the castle owners had the sentiment value of the castles to repair and rebuild,” Germenis says. “It’s our duty to keep up the will of our forefathers. That’s why we’re here.”

Members of the group lobby government officials and share tips on things like finding good maintenance crews and dealing with problems modernizing creaky plumbing. They visit each other’s buildings and work on marketing and tourism campaigns.

“We discuss problems,” Germenis says. “All the castle owners are in very good contact with the monuments committee and the Culture Ministry as they all have a lot to repair. And all require the assistance of the state.”

For example, the group is currently lobbying the government to drop a 9 percent value-added tax on castles, Germenis says. She makes the argument that the tax isn’t charged on state-owned castles so it shouldn’t be charged to private ones. Another issue is Czech depreciation tax write-offs. They’re spread out over 50 years — another deterrent for owners who want to renovate.

“It would be very helpful to the private owners of historic houses and castles if the period of depreciation regarding repairs were shorter,” Germenis says.

There has also been lobbying with monument preservation officials around the country, says Vojtěch Lažanský, an association member and the son of the owners of Zámek Chýše, near the spa town of Karlovy Vary in west Bohemia.

Owning a castle might sound idyllic to those who don’t have one — Blatná has a herd of tame deer, peacocks strutting around the 42 hectares of grounds and a 13th-century legend about a treasure hidden somewhere in the massive building.

But it’s a struggle. Money taken in from entry fees ranging from 40 to 120 Kč ($2.40–7.50) per person is certainly not enough to make ends meet, Germenis says.

“It’s very difficult to run it. You don’t live off the ticket sales,” Germenis says.

About 100 visitors per day come to Blatná during the busy summer months, but revenues aren’t enough to pay for all the repairs, which include fixes to expensive leaded windows in the main wing of the building. The fancy windows are now stored inside. Heavy, clear plastic covers the holes.

Pricey repairs

Just the basic fix-up work at Blatná, not including new floors, heat and other amenities, is estimated at about 25 million Kč; total costs could be double that. Costs are extra high because the castle is on an “island,” surrounded by a moat, Germenis points out.

“Our aim is to redo and refurbish the last part of the castle and to open it for the public. The estimated cost could reach up to 50 million Kč,” Germenis says.

Germenis and her husband Spiros expect to get state subsidies to help them finish the facade within the next year.

With renovation funds so hard to come by, most owners, including Germenis, have turned to other historic operations to make money — making alcohol in centuries-old distilleries and selling ducks, chickens and fish products, among other things.

Germenis founded a fish company in 1994, using cement holding ponds in a small factory across the street from the castle. Traditional Christmas carp are held in the ponds late in the year.

“We would never survive without side products,” Germenis says.

Members of the association pay a fee of 5,000 Kč to join, and the group has Amhz.cz, its own Web site. It also belongs to the Union of European Historic Houses’ Associations and Europa Nostra, both tourism-oriented groups.

Some of the country’s most well-known families are members, including the Lobkowiczs and the Kinskýs. But the Schwarzenbergs are not, even though they have various palatial holdings around the country. The Liechtenstein family is also a potential recruit.

“We need the top brass,” says Spiros Germenis. “We’ve gotten into a channel with steep banks, and we have to swim.”

Communist takeover

Blatná Castle was taken over in 1953 when the communist “militia” unexpectedly told the family to get out at the point of a bayonet on a cold December eve. The family stayed in a two-room hut on a neighboring farm before leaving Czechoslovakia for Ethiopia at the request of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1959, Germenis says. The Ethiopian connection came from a friendship her diplomat grandfather had with Selassie in 1935 at the League of Nations, after Selassie made a speech complaining about Italian Fascists invading his country.

Family members returned to the Czech Republic in 1990 because of property restitution, Germenis says.

Germenis and her husband are now focusing on new tourism-oriented events to make the castle operate in the black, including “international weekends” that bring groups from other countries to visit. A Greek women’s group kicked things off in September. Slovak and Austrian groups will come this summer. The regional government of south Bohemia provided some funding for the events.

A tourist draw

Trying to develop such tourist activities at castles is a familiar refrain to outside investors like Chris Barrow, who holds a lease option to buy Zámek Osov, west of Prague about 30 miles. Barrow is looking for 100 members to buy “shares” in his plans to turn the castle and its grounds into a country club and a luxury hotel. The manor house dates to the 18th century.

Barrow visited Blatná and suggested an eco-resort theme to take advantage of the artificial lake surrounding the castle, but he is not a member of the association.

At Zámek Chýše, tourism has been relatively successful, with profits from entrance fees, conferences, meetings and restaurants bringing in about 1 million Kč per year, Lažanský says. But maintenance comes to about 2 million Kč per year.

Soňa Klímová-Janečková, another member of the group, doesn’t have such a steady stream of income. The owner of Zámek Kvasiny plans out the meager repairs she makes with money from her own pocket. The castle is located in north Moravia near the Polish border.

“When I save enough, something will get repaired, so it is going very slowly,” Klímová-Janečková says.

For Barrow, Zámek Osov needs completely new heating, plumbing and electricity systems to make it viable for tourism, even though it was a functioning home during communist times.

“The biggest issue is how to turn these places into a business and how to attract people there,” Barrow says. “You can’t bring visitors there until it looks good.”

But on the plus side, there now seems to be more government money available to renovate such castles and historical buildings, Barrow says.

“The association does make sense, where they would be able to influence legislation, and the way things are done,” Barrow says.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com

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