Žilina Gallery :: Fotogaléria mesta Žiliny

20 – Townhouse 24 (Noble House)

Turistická informačná tabuľka č. 20 s QR kódom na Panskom dome na Mariánskom námestí
(Foto: 15. 7. 2007)

The house that stands today was originally composed of two separate buildings. The last owner of the detached house next to the residence of the Jesuits was Juraj Beniač. His widow then sold the building in 1774 to the Strečno estate which owned the neighbouring building. It had belonged to the owners of the estate since the sixteenth century and was known as the Noble House and rented out to the town. The Noble House building is now one single unit. This was not the case in the past. In any case, the corner house which originally stood here was most probably the inn of the Strečno estate and called the Wine House. The history of the inn goes back a relatively long way. The owners of Žilina, the Esterházi family, rented it in 1614 to an inhabitant of Žilina who had to pay up to three hundred florins for the privilege. The contract was confirmed in1659 by Emperor Leopold II. In 1691 a new, even less advantageous, contract was signed; the town definitely lost the house, and if it wanted to rent it, it would have to pay up to one thousand florins. Since then, the house has been known Noble House. Old inhabitants of Žilina still call it by that name.
Around 1774, the building looked as it does today. The house was badly damaged in the famous fire of Žilina in 1848. Twenty years later, the owner of Bytča castle, Leopold Popper, bought the Strečno estate, including the Noble House property. His sons, however, gradually sold off the Strečno estate and in 1896 sold the Noble House to Samuel Hahn, from whom it was bought in 1909 by count František Ballestrém. In 1920 it belonged to the Society for the Exploitation of Wood from the Moravian town of Ostrava which later opened a branch in Čadca. In 1927, the building was bought by František Hromec who sold it eleven years later to Slovak Insurance. As part of the general scheme of nationalisation, it was nationalised in 1954 and the Žilina clothes shop, later known as Otex had its headquarters there. The building was thus closed to the public until the end of socialism in 1989. The Panský dom and the town hall were some of the most important secular buildings on the square, and the former was the best-known house after the town hall, with the exception, naturally, of the church and monastery.
The building was a restaurant, hotel and the place of the first telephone call. The tradition of inn-keeping in this house goes back a relatively long way, and after 1990 a restaurant was re-opened in the building. The building was a well-known centre for social life in the town; apparently at one time it was called “To Sobieski”, probably in honour of the Polish king Ján II Sobieski who defeatedbeat the Turks near Vienna and then the Poles stopped off in Žilina on their way back. On old postcards from the First Republic, we can see a large sign saying “Hotel Panský dom” on the house. It is interesting to note that the house also makes an appearance in the novel "Beszterce ostroma" by the Hungarian writer (with Slovak roots) Kálmán Mikszáth dating from 1895, which is known in Slovak as “The last lord of the castle” and is dedicated to count Štefan Pongrác. At that time, there was already a music café there and a large hall for fêtes, balls, social events and theatre performances; for example in 1879 the Žilina amateur dramatics society gave a performance of the play “The Frolicsome Boy”. The hotel had twenty rooms. It was a versatile building, since various political meetings were held here too. The first phone call in Žilina was made from the house. The corner house at the end of the western row of houses has a Gothic basement, a Renaissance-Baroque ground floor and Baroque – Classicist features can be found on the first floor.

Source: PhDr. Marián Mrva. Text prevzatý z webovej stránky TIK Žilina (kliknite): www.tikzilina.eu.