The history of the Wielopolski Palace is closely linked to the history of the Ostrowiec estates, which included Częstocice.
These estates were purchased in 1836 from the widow of the previous owner, Jerzy Dobrzański, by Count Henryk Łubieński, vice president of the Bank of Poland. After its bankruptcy in 1845, they became the property of the bank and then of the Fraenkel S.A. Trading House in Warsaw.
Antoni Edward Fraenkel commissioned the architect Leandro Jan Ludwik Marconi (1834–1919) to design a palace that was to be built in the Klimkiewiczów settlement, located near Częstocice. Ultimately, the palace was located in Częstocice, on the site of an old wooden manor house that had existed until the mid-19th century. The construction, which began in the 1870s, was completed by the next owner of the Ostrowiec estate, the Warsaw banker Władysław Laski, who designated Częstocice as a dowry for his daughter, Maria. Construction work on the palace lasted from 1887 to 1899.
In 1886, Maria was married to Count Zygmunt Wielopolski (1863–1919), a landowner and politician—president of the Real Politics Party with a pro-Russian orientation. From that time on, the Ostrowiec estate with Częstocice became the main seat of this Wielopolscy line, and the palace, together with the Hunting Palace located in Kuźnia, on the other side of the Kamienna River valley, was the cultural, administrative, and economic centre of these estates.
Zygmunt and Maria lived in the palace with their four children: Władysław, Józef Aleksander, Aleksander Władysław, and Maria Stefania. Among their guests were many distinguished personalities—in 1920, the Wielopolski family hosted General Maxime Weygand and Captain Charles de Gaulle, who were staying in the area with a French military mission.
Twelve years after Zygmunt’s death, in 1931, Maria Wielopolska sold the palace and the park to Ostrowiec Works, which was seeking to purchase it. At that time, the palace was converted into a hotel for shareholders and a club for the technical staff of the Steelworks, around which the cultural life of pre-war Ostrowiec centred.
During World War II, the palace served as an apartment for officials of Ostrowiec Works, and in the basement, soldiers of the Home Army produced hand grenades. From mid-1944 to January 1945, after the palace was seized by the Germans, it housed a military hospital. In the post-war period, the Wielopolski Palace building housed two primary schools from Częstocice and Szewna, a common room, and a kindergarten. In 1959, the deserted building was increasingly devastated. In 1963, the management of the Ostrowiec Steelworks handed over the palace and the park to the Presidium of the Municipal National Council in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski for use as a Regional Museum, which was opened on 3 December 1966.
Architecture of the palace
It is worth paying a moment’s attention to the architecture of the Wielopolski Palace, whose elevations, unlike the interiors, have not been fundamentally changed since its construction. The palace and the park form a palace complex, which was entered into the register of immovable monuments of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship on 16 September 1975.
The Wielopolski Palace was designed in the eclectic style popular in Poland at the end of the 19th century by the architect Leandro Jan Ludwik Marconi (1834–1919). Eclecticism is a secondary style. It is one of the varieties of historicism, combining elements from different, often very distant stylistic eras in one building.
The architecture of the Wielopolski Palace is a fairly successful example of an eclectic building. Palace is relatively small in size and largely refers to the classicist style. The facades use a superimposed order, and architectural detail is used with moderation. As a result, it was possible to avoid the overwhelming impression made by many other eclectic buildings (examples include Leandro Marconi’s Warsaw designs, e.g., the Branicki Palace on Frascati Street or Bank Handlowy).
The palace in Częstocice is picturesquely situated on a gentle loess slope, descending towards the Kamienna River. The two-story building with a basement, with plastered brick walls, was designed on the plan of an elongated rectangle; the total volume of the rooms is 8200 cubic meters. The building has a hipped roof made of copper sheet metal. There is also a roof over two avant-corps on the eastern and western elevations.
The nine-axis symmetrical facade of the palace is characterized by transparency and harmony. The driveway portico is topped with a triangular pediment supported by eight stocky Tuscan columns holding up the terrace of the first floor. It attracts the attention of spectators. At the bottom of the pediment, there is the date MDCCCLXXXVII, which denotes the year 1887. The front wall of the building is topped with a section of the attic with a panel in the middle, which shows the coats of arms of the palace owners—the Wielopolski family (Starykoń) and the Laski family (their own coat of arms).
The garden elevation on the south side, with a ground-floor terrace, refers to the front elevation. The accents breaking the monotonous surface of the wall are two small balconies arranged analogously to the balconies of the front elevation and a flat avant-corps.
There were farm buildings near the palace building, now largely non-existent. Some of the preserved ones are used for residential purposes. They are not part of the museum complex.
Interior of the palace (Wnętrze pałacu)
The current appearance and interior layout of the Wielopolski Palace are the result of the reconstructions and renovations that the building underwent to adapt it to the needs of the museum.
The greatest changes were brought about in the years 1963-1966, when, by the concept of the Office of Municipal Construction Design in Radom, the spatial layout of the first floor was redesigned, the communication function of the ground floor was changed, the building was provided with a sewage system, the electrical installation was replaced and a central heating system was installed, the tiled stoves were dismantled, and the eastern staircase was demolished. The architectural decoration of the ground floor included stucco in the form of lintels, pilasters, friezes, and rosettes on the ceilings.
From the 1960s to the present day, the building has undergone several significant changes: painting the facade, replacing the floors and window frames, repairing the cornices, installing a skylight in the roof, and connecting to the city heating network. However, after many years of use of the palace, renovation was necessary, which would allow the building to be adapted to modern times and needs. The last general renovation, carried out in 2018-2022, brought great changes. The roof covering, installations, floors, and interior joinery were replaced. The layout of the communication routes and the functions of some rooms were changed. The facade, balconies, and terraces were also renovated. The palace gained a chance to exist safely for decades to come.
It is worth noting that in the materials and patterns used—the colours of the walls, interior joinery, flooring, and floors—an attempt was made to refer to the former appearance of the palace—known from photographs and preserved archives from the time of the Wielopolski family. A significant change for guests and the everyday functioning of the museum was the installation of an elevator, allowing the elderly and people with movement disabilities to use the facility freely.
The main entrance leads us to a representative hall, the space of which is divided by three pairs of Tuscan columns. To the right of the entrance is a room that was originally the owner’s office, currently an administrative room. From the hall, the entrance leads to all the rooms on the ground floor, which are currently intended for the needs of permanent exhibitions.
The first floor of the building, which is accessed via a contemporary staircase, was almost completely rebuilt in the 1960s. Only the load-bearing walls necessary for the structure of the building were left. The historical layout of the rooms is visible in the storage area, which is inaccessible to visitors.
During the last renovation, the palace cellars were rebuilt. Part of them was equipped with spacious bathrooms, which can also be used by participants of workshops and museum lessons organized in the educational room located opposite. The rest of the cellars serve as a place for temporary exhibitions, storage rooms, and utility rooms.