History of the Palace

The orginis of Pałac Żelechów date back to the 18th century.

The construction of the palace began in 1762. The owner at the time was Prince Jerzy Ignacy Lubomirski, Grand Crown Ensign.

In 1792, the Zelechów estate was acquired by Ignacy Wyssogota Zakrzewski, the first president of Warsaw and a member of the Four-Year Sejm, co-founder of the Constitution of May 3 and co-organizer of the Kosciuszko Uprising. Since 1827, the palace has belonged to Karolina and Jan Ordęga. In 1838, Jan Ordęga partially reconstructed the palace and richly decorated its interior. The surrounding area was decorated with a magnificent English-style park with beautifully incorporated ponds and a fruit orchard adjacent to the park. When founding the palace park, Jan Ordęga, a member of the Freemasons, made sure that the various parts were arranged to form cabala figures. In 1845-1853, the Ordęga Family frequently hosted Romuald Traugutt stationed in the local sapper battalion. In 1852, Pałac Żelechow was the venue for the wedding of Romuald Traugutt and Anna Pikiel.

The Ordęga Family was succeeded by the Szuster Family, who owned the palace until the end of World War II. In 1944, the building was seized by Soviet troops, who significantly demolished and looted it. After the war, the palace was restored and handed over to the Vocational School Complex. In 1960, the palace-park complex was entered into the register of monuments (reg. no. A-53/266). In 2006 the palace once again returned to private hands.

The palace represents the classicist style. It is bricked, plastered, and one-story, rising on an elongated rectangular plan, facing west. It has a one-story central section preceded by a four-columned Tuscan portico with a terrace at the front and an overhanging projection with strongly rounded corners at the back. The front of the portico features a staircase with driveways on the sides. Its roof is hipped, with a gabled roof overhanging the first floor. The palace has preserved classical stucco decoration. The ceiling is adorned with a frieze with sphinx and vase motifs, while the doors and windows are embellished with stucco friezes with floral motifs and profiled and ornamented cornices. The window openings are rhythmically arranged.

The outbuilding was raised in the second half of the 18th century and later transformed in the first half of the 19th century. Its location is perpendicular to the palace, at its southern elevation. It has been set on an elongated rectangle with rounded corners. The elevations are segmented with simplified pilasters and enlivened with a frame division. Some of the rooms have barrel vaults with lunettes. The hipped roof is covered with sheet metal.

The palace park was established in the second half of the 18th century and covers an area of more than 8 hectares. Its sizable part includes two richly stocked ponds. The park's composition draws on the English style. From the entrance gate towards the main entrance leads a wide avenue planted with linden trees. It transitions into a circular lawn in front of the building.

The tree stand abounds with native species - hornbeams, maples, and lindens. Among the non-native trees, two species of acacia robinia and white chestnut dominate, in particular. The oldest trees in the park date back to the second half of the eighteenth century. Two small-leaved lindens and one maple-leaf plane have the status of natural monuments. The particularly noteworthy shrubs include the common lily and the common strawberry. Among the birds, rooks are most common, but you may also see or hear tawny owls, blackbirds, great spotted woodpeckers, barn owls, wood warblers, fieldsfares, wood warblers, cushats, spotted flycatchers, finches, orioles, Eurasian blue tits, great tits, buntings, and magpies. Capering around the park are also squirrels, hedgehogs, shrews, moles, forest martens, and bats. Among amphibians, you can mostly encounter the fire-bellied toad, water, grass, and tree frogs, and the great crested newt.