Ratměřice
- Clasificación
- Château
- País
- Chequia
- Región
- Benešov
- Dirección
- Ratměřice 1, 257 03 Ratměřice
Ratměřice Chateau stands in the village of Ratměřice, approximately 10 km east of Votice. The Classical chateau has been a listed monument since 1958. Jan Antonín Lukáš Kořenský of Terešov purchased the Jankovo estate with Ratměřice in 1702 from Rudolf of Talmberg. He transferred the seat of the estate from Jankov to Ratměřice and after 1702 had a new chateau built there in the Baroque style. Between 1830 and 1838 the chateau and progressively the entire Jankovo-Ratměřice estate was purchased by Countess Henrietta Chotková of Chotek and Vojnín. In 1853 she had both Central Bohemian estates registered in the names of her sons Otta and Rudolf. It was chiefly Otta Ferdinand Chotek of Chotkov and Vojnín who devoted his attention to the Ratměřice chateau; he was the author of its Classical remodelling and the founder of the adjacent English landscape park. Otta Ferdinand Chotek died without issue in 1889 in Vienna, and his brother sold the indebted estate in 1898 to Josef and Viktorie Černý. In the land reform of 1926 the Ratměřice-Jankovo estate was dissolved, and one of its former parts was purchased by JUDr. Vladimír Kabeš and his wife Milada. During the 1920s and 1930s the Ratměřice chateau and the park with its game preserve were in very good condition thanks to the care of the Kabeš family. A tennis court was built in the park, a pool with an island and water supply in the game preserve, and fallow deer were introduced. The main entrance to the chateau was also improved. JUDr. Vladimír Kabeš died in 1947 at the age of sixty-one, leaving one son. After the Second World War the chateau was nationalised from JUDr. Vladimír Kabeš the Younger, and from that time it was state-owned as the seat of numerous institutions. In the 1990s the Ratměřice chateau and park were returned in restitution to JUDr. Vladimír Kabeš Jr. Although the reverted owner had lived for a long time in the USA, he managed to carry out the costly restoration of hundreds of metres of park walls and the garden pavilion in the southern part of the enclosing walls. Unfortunately he died in Washington in 2009 at the age of 91. Since his death both the chateau and the park lacked consistent care and deteriorated. The restoration of the chateau and park to their present form was undertaken by the current owner, Ing. Tomáš Novák, who purchased the chateau in 2010 and under whose leadership both the chateau and the park underwent a demanding reconstruction. The chateau building today welcomes guests as a luxury hotel with a restaurant and conference facilities. The chateau complex represents a valuable example of a rural noble seat whose architectural conception has been preserved.