Interior Inspiration: State Chateau Slatinany

A month ago, I took a trip to a city I passed through for about 28 years with my parents, as we traveled to our country house. We would do the only stop in this city for sweet bread, but we have never visited the local Chateau. And to be honest, we were missing out on a fantastic gem.

A little something about the place's history. The first mentions of the Chateau are from the 13th century. Yes, the middle-age Europe era 700 years ago, when gunpowder was invented and the first human rights document Magna Carta Liberatum was created. Since then, this medieval manor had over 30 owners who kept updating the building to current styles. In the 18th century, the Schönfeld family purchased the estate, a Czech knight, and a count family. Through marriage, it then belonged to the Auersperg family, which owned the Chateau until WWII.

The last family of owners, prince Franz Joseph Auersperg with his wife Wilhelmine Kinsky and their kids, are recognized as the most essential owners who turned this summer house into a loving home. This family was a perfect example of great parenting and family bond from what we've been told. Prince Franz Joseph married his childhood friend Wilhelmine with whom he had four kids. They both gave considerable importance to education, so their kids had school every day with no holidays or weekends. But part of the education was estate handling. They built their kids little estate within the chateau area to play with other kids and learn to take care of the house, animals, and locals. Other than that, the family was majorly interested in horses. Not only they owned stables, rode steeplechase, but their horses were part of the family, and you can feel the presence throughout the whole Chateau.

There are rooms dedicated to their horses full of paintings, memorabilia, and also… their hoofs. When their favorite horse died, they cut off the hoof to make an ashtray from it to keep close; each with embossed name and date of birth and death. Little too much, I know. This Chateau is also very advanced regarding technology. We visited their cooler room, a great darkroom under the building as a cellar. They also had a freezer room in the shape of an igloo with a ceiling hole for stocking it with ice. And technologically, it has one unique room, and that is the central heating room. What I really loved about the place is the atmosphere. The Chateau itself looks like a Mediterranean villa except more significant, and I loved the interior as well as you could clearly get the idea about the life of the owners.

Look for yourself.