Art Nouveau Architecture in Budejovice

Over the last few weeks I have been developing a website which promotes a comprehensive service for finding, buying and running properties in South Bohemia. The service is run by a fellow ex-pat, who has been helping Brits buy properties in the area for several years now. By the way I did it for free, so this is not a commercial.

I'm not a web designer, but I must say I am rather pleased with the result on http://sites.google.com/site/czechhouseandcottage/

It was created using Google's Sites, with a bit of HTML adjustment.

And it allowed me the pleasure of wandering round Ceske Budejovice taking photos of beautiful Art Nouveau apartment buildings ( see above). Of course the site also covers how to find cottages, and houses in Cesky Krumlov, Ceske Budejovice and South Bohemia, but we found we already had photos of the other property types.


As a Brit one tends to focus on the delightful old cottages, farmhouses and townhouses that abound here, and certainly that is what attracted us to buy here. But from an investment point of view Ceske Budejovice makes a lot of sense: Budejovice Airport is opening to international flights in 2012 and the city is the commercial centre of the region. And then there are these lovely Art Nouveau apartments and villas, and even Art Deco ones too.

Finding the House

I am trying very hard to remember what my first impressions were of the house I now know as home. Well, for starters, it was a lot bigger property than I had ever imagined I could afford, much bigger than the Cotswold cottage we had at home in the UK. But that said it was packed to the gunnels with a hotchpotch of furniture, all of it old and rather tatty, which actually reduced my appreciation of the size of the place. On that furniture lounged various members of the owners' family.

I was shown around by the daughter and son of the old woman, whose house this had been and who had died some seven years earlier. Since her death the house had been used as a chalupa by her children and grandchildren. Nothing much had been done to maintain the place in those seven years and one suspected not much had been done for many years before. Indeed everything had that make-do-and-mend look that I had come to recognise in many Czech properties, where an absence of money and access to DIY materials under the communists had led to sometimes brilliant inventiveness and more often to some very weird contraptions. This tradition has continued as a visit to the local DIY stores will vouch. Fortunately in the case of my house this seemed to have been combined with a degree of laziness that meant that the damage was limited, with the exception of an abandoned attempt at creating a shower (on the landing of all places).

In the large front room downstairs there was a sitting area with huge television and a kitchen made of punched metal (see above). Such a kitchen in the UK would have been a collectors' item, and would probably have been at a high specification of design, this cheap Czech version merited no such interest. Next to the stove was a door into the bathroom where there were two boilers (heated by wood), as the family had installed a new one and not bothered to remove the old. At the back of the ground floor were two cellars which were built into the hill behind and the door to the lower cellar.Upstairs were five rooms, one of which was being used as another sitting room. From the landing an open stair led into an enormous loftspace, so large that it could accommodate a reasonable-sized flat, but when I saw it first was a general dumping ground for broken furniture, old carpets etc. From the roof beams hung old duvets, which thanks to mice or martins were emptying their contents on to the floor. My friend told me that traditionally in Winter the roof space was used for drying the washing - it was as if the old lady had left her bedding up there to dry and never returned. The roof beams were huge compared to British ones and there were lots of them. The roof was covered with grey tiles which were beginning to fry and I noted would need replacing.

Despite the fact that I had said I didn't want to do any work on my Czech property purchase the potential of the place really appealed. Despite the tat and clutter the house spoke to me and it said "Take care of me!" and I listened in a way I had not done in any of the other places I had looked at.

The search for the house

I had been visiting the Czech Republic for some time when I decided to buy here. I am often asked what led me to make that decision. I often joke that it was my mid-life crisis - and as is so often the case with a joke there is some truth at the heart of it. I needed somewhere I could relax and allow the poet in me come to the fore, work was increasingly pressured and I was finding it hard to stop doing "stuff" even at my Cotswold home. So I decided I needed a Czech chata - a hut in the woods, somewhere beautiful to go and be amongst nature.

Looking back I recognise now that it was more complex than that. I rather suspect I wanted more even then, but did not admit it. I am pretty sure I was looking for a way out of my frantic lifestyle. There were certainly other more obvious motives, the most important of which was simply one of friendship.

And so it was that, after convincing my husband that I was serious and gaining his agreement to the purchase of a chata for a modest and affordable sum, I asked my friend to advise me how to go about buying such a thing. She sent me a link to a website which brings together properties from a variety of estate agents, less for me to find the property but more to get a feel about what was out there and at what cost. What it did tell me was that it was impossible to tell anything much from a website. This was partly because everything was in Czech, and partly because Czech estate agents have no idea how to photograph properties they are selling - it was amazingly common to find a property advertised by a rather bad photo of a badly decorated bathroom.

In the summer of 2005 I arrived in Cesky Krumlov, armed with some properties I was interested in and proceeded to look. My friend advised me rightly that often a good-looking property would be spoilt by the context in which it was sited - so many Czech villages and towns have their communist eyesore blocks of flats or factory farms which really spoil the feeling of the place. It helps therefore to have someone who knows the area and who can prevent a wasted journey. She also advised me that some of the best houses would never make it onto the estate agents' and would come via someone who knew the owner. How right she was!

If you are looking for a house or cottage to buy in the Czech Republic, may I suggest you visit Czech Property Search

Debating Builders

I recently invited some Brits, who have just bought a typical Czech farmhouse in a village a few miles away, to tea. It seemed only right that we Brits should support each other in our excursions into Czech property purchase. Anyway, they were full of tales about Czech builders and their plans for their new enormous home. I sat and listened to their excitement and enthusiasm and remembered what I had felt two years ago when I had started.

One thing they commented on was an incident at the house of another friend, where a crack had appeared in a wall following a ditch being excavated to protect the house walls from penetrating damp. They were taken aback by the Czech builders' response, which was to stand around in heated conversation, with much waving of arms and scratching of heads. "It was obvious what was wrong and needed to be done," my fellow Brit commented. "Instead there was this argument."

I smiled to myself. I have seen these Czech "arguments" many times and like my British friend had at first misread them. Czechs are far more expressive and animated than us and they love to argue. It doesn't matter that the answer is obvious. It doesn't matter that they probably actually agree with each other. The crack in the wall, the twisting beam or the water in the cellar, all are opportunities for a good old Czech debate

Chata and Chalupa - Cabins and Cottages

During the communist era it was not possible for Czechs to travel abroad easily and so many Czechs had second homes in the country. My Czech friend argues that the authorities actually encouraged this as a means of reducing anti-government resentment. Every weekend the family would pile into their cars and disappear to their base in the country to grow vegetables, sit round the barbecue, drink beer and sing into the night. And of course the Czech pastimes of fishing and mushroom picking are also associated with the trip to the chata.

There are two types of second home - the chata - a cabin built for the purpose of recreation, and the chalupa - a cottage (though sometimes a large farmhouse or similar) which once was a residential property. They can range from the very basic - some chata are merely sheds made of whatever was at hand - to the luxurious. One development that helped fuel the growth of cottage ownership in the period following the Second World War was the availability of empty ex-German homes in the Sudetenland. Another was the rise of a back-to-nature movement, connected with the scouting movement and influenced by the pioneers of American Wild West - you will even find the occasional totem pole outside a chata!

The house we bought had been used as a chalupa - although it had previously been the family home. It is a large farmhouse of the German style and is set in a village where probably 40% of the houses are second homes. For Brits looking to buy Czech property chata and chalupa offer a chance to buy somewhere in beautiful setting. They vary considerably in state of repair - sometimes they are their former owners' pride and joy, sometimes they have been the victims of the Czech obsession with do-it-yourself and sometimes they are old buildings which the Czechs have effectively camped in, not having the money to restore.

However such is the affection in which the Czechs hold their country cottages and cabins that many would not consider selling them - they are part of their best family memories - and many that do do not go through an estate agent. It therefore helps to have someone with local knowledge to assist you in finding your dream house. We found ours with the help of a local company which helps Brits find property in the area of Cesky Krumlov - we recommend them. Check out their website on http://www.czechpropertysearch.co.uk

Beginnings - the house

I wasn't looking to buy a house. I was looking for a cottage or hut in the woods - a chata as the Czechs call them. I wasn't planning to do any work on it either. But I wasn't reckoning on the way a building can get its hooks into you in an instant or the way something deep inside of you responds to its call. So instead of a small undemanding hut I bought a large farmhouse in need of restoration.

The house is of a type common in the area around Horice na Sumave. It is the house bit of an old courtyard farm. We also own a derelict, two-storey, balconied barn that runs off at right angles to the house. Both had belonged to an old lady, who had not had the money to make any major changes or improvements to them. When she died the farm was left to her children who used it as a holiday home and again had not the money (or inclination) to do anything with it. It was therefore in need of work, but had not been spoiled by do-it-yourself zealousness.

So what attracted me? The sun pours in at dawn and the light at evening is equally stunning. The granite walls are over 2 feet thick and built onto granite bedrock - it is almost as if the house has grown out of the hillside on which it sits. Everywhere there is granite - huge granite slabs laid as a path, granite cobbles, granite walls. The barn has its original brick vaulted ceiling downstairs and upstairs a large open space with large exposed beams. The proportions and layout of the house are large and perfect. It is set in an ideal position overlooking a small village, which has not been spoiled (as so many have been) by concrete monstrosities built by the communists.

This is a village we remember fondly from our childhoods, one in which children play in the street - outside my house my neighbours' kids have chalked a hopscotch grid. And that I think was a large part of it. When I was a girl I had a friend called Paul with whom I explored the fields and woods around my Cotswold home town. We made dens and dammed streams. And on some weekends and holidays Paul's mum would borrow a cottage that nestled under Humblebee Wood overlooking the valley and I would go too. I've wanted one ever since.

That evening I rang my husband in England "Hello lovely, you know I said I was buying a hut. Well I've bought an old farmhouse." There was a pause at the other end of the line.

Why buy a house in South Bohemia

We heard a few days ago that the airport at Ceske Budejovice has got the go-ahead to become a full-blown international airport. This is great news for us personally and for the economy of Sothern Bohemia generally.

The nearest airport to Cesky Krumlov at the moment is over the border in Linz just over an hour's drive away. Otherwise it is fly to Prague and travel by either car or train down. The Prague journey is pretty easy and goes through some great countryside. And it is getting quicker with major track and road improvements happening as I write, but it does currently take about 3 hrs. An airport at Ceske Budejovice would change all that, especially one served by one of the British budget airlines. Suddenly the whole of Southern Bohemia could open up. We have been in the vanguard of Brits investing down here, but this news could mean that we will be followed by many more.

Why would one invest here (well why did we):

• this has to be one of the most beautiful parts of Europe - lakes, mountains and forests, and some great historic towns, of which Cesky Krumlov is the most famous
• there is skiing in the winter and walking, biking, climbing and canoeing in the summer
• you can buy a large run-down old farmhouse for about 25,000 pounds and still have change out 80,000 when you have done it up or you can get a cottage for less
• cost of living is cheap - you can buy the real Budweiser/Budwar (made in Ceske Budejovice) for about 25p in the local Tesco's
• you are right in the middle of Europe - under 5 hrs drive from Italy, less than one from Austria and Germany and 6 hours from the Med
• and of course you could do what we did, which is fall in love with this wonderful country.

On second thoughts - forget everything I have said. I think I'll just keep it the way it is - don't want everyone knowing about it. It can be our secret.