According to the plan, the two-storey manor at the farm will be converted into a reception area and information centre. The building will also be the home to a horse museum, showing the history of Hungarian stud farming in the framework of the Festetics family's efforts. The blacksmith's workshop will be rebuilt, along with a covered stable, where tourists can ride horse or carriage. Long-term plans even include the construction of a race track, Czoma says.
The 50-hectare stud farm operated from the 18th century, when Lippizaner stallions were raised for the Kaiser, until the start of WWII. The Festetics family built the manor around 1820 in the classical style. Their studs met with no small degree of success on many of Europe's race tracks.
After WWII, the farm was turned into a co-operative. Since the 50s, the manor has been inhabited by squatters. Today, several hundred people live there, without gas or plumbing. The only potable water comes from the well in the courtyard, says Czoma.
Although the Festetics Castle Museum bought the farm for HUF 60 million in 1992, the 40 families living in the manner pose a problem for its restoration, he says.
Plans to renovate the farm include the reconstruction of Roman-era ruins at the site, which was once along the road from Aquincum, in present-day Budapest and Rome. It was here that the roads between the Roman cities of Sopianae (Pécs), and Savaria (Szombathely), crossed. A fortress was built at the site in the 4th century, but today only the outlines of a few buildings remain, among them a church and a granary.
Source: Múlt-kor / Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
