Peles Castle — Historical Castles , Peles castle, Romania, Amazing History

Peleș Castle may be a Neo-Renaissance castle within the Carpathians, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inauguration was held in 1883. It had been constructed for King Carol I. Like most things, it all started with a vision. Carol I, the first prince of Romania, visited the area in August 1866. The view of the region, with the first touches of autumn, inspired him and made him fall in love with its beauty. He came from the south of Germany to become the ruler of Romania and help it become an independent nation. It was in his power to decide that the summer residence of his future family would be here. That’s how he decided on building the Peles Castle.

As he decided on this particular area, just outside of the Poiana Neagului commune, infrastructure had to be created to aid in building the monument. When King Carol I of Romania under whose reign the entire country gained its independence, visited for the first time the site of the future castle in 1866, he fell in love with the magnificent mountain scenery. In 1872, the Crown purchased 5 square kilometres of land not far from the Piatra Arsă River. This estate was named the Royal Estate of Sinaia. The King commissioned the construction of a royal hunting preserve and a summer retreat on the property, and the foundation was laid for the Peleș Castle on 22 August 1873. Several auxiliary buildings were built at the same time with the castle: the guard’s chambers, the Economat Building, the Foișor hunting lodge, the royal stables, and, of course, a power plant. Peleș castle became the world’s first castle powered entirely by locally produced electricity.

The first three design plans submitted for Peleș were copies of palaces located in Western Europe, and King Carol I rejected them all because they were lacking originality and were being too costly. The German architect Johannes Schultz won the project whem he presented a more original plan, something that appealed to the King’s taste: a grand palatial alpine castle combining different features of classic European styles, following mostly Italian elegance and German aesthetics along Renaissance lines. Works were also led by the architect Carol Benesch. Later some additions were made between 1893 and 1914 by the Czech architect Karel Liman, who designed the towers, including the main central tower, which is 66 metres in height. The Sipot Building, which used to serve as Liman’s headquarters during the construction, was built later on. Liman supervised the building of the nearby Pelișor Castle (1889–1903, the future residence of King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie of Romania), as well as of King Ferdinand’s villa in the Royal Sheepfold Meadow.

The cost of the construction on the castle undertaken between 1875 and 1914 was estimated to be about 16,000,000 Romanian lei in gold (approx. US$ 120 million today). More than four hundred men worked on the construction.

Construction saw a small slowdown during the Romanian War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire in 1877–78, but soon afterwards the plans grew in size and construction was quite rapid. The official Royal Ball of Inauguration of the Peleș Castle was on the 7th of October 1883. King Carol I and Queen Elizabeth lived in Foişor Villa during construction, as did King Ferdinand and Queen Marie during the development of Pelișor Castle. King Carol II was born at the castle in 1893, giving aiming to the phrase “cradle of the dynasty, cradle of the nation” that Carol I bestowed upon Peleș Castle. Carol II lived in Foișor Villa for different periods during his reign.

After the King Michael I’s forced abdication in 1947, the Communist regime seized all royal property, including the Peleș Estate. The castle then became a tourist attraction for a brief time. It also served as a recreation and a resting place for Romanian cultural personalities. The castle was declared a museum in the year 1953. Nicolae Ceaușescu closed the entire estate between the years 1975 and 1990, during the last years of the Communist regime. The area was declared a “State Protocol Interest Area”, and for that reason the only persons permitted on the property were maintenance and military personnel.

Ceaușescu didn’t just like the castle considerably and infrequently visited. In the 1980s, a number of the timber was infested with Serpula lacrymans. After the December 1989 Revolution, Peleș and Pelișor Castle were re-established as heritage sites and opened to the general public. Today, Foișor Castle serves as a presidential residence. The Economat Building and therefore the Guard’s Chambers Building are now hotels and restaurants. Some of the other buildings on the Peleș Estate were converted to tourist villas and some are now “state protocol buildings”. In the year 2006, the Romanian government announced the restitution of the castle to former monarch Michael I. Negotiations soon began between the former king and the government of Romania, and were concluded in 2007. The castle is on lease from the royalty to the Romanian state. Peleș Castle receives between 1 / 4 and almost a half million visitors annually.

Artists like Enesco, Bernhardt, Jacques Thibaud and Vasile Alecsandri visited often as guests of Queen Elizabeth of Romania (herself a writer also known under the nom de plume of Carmen Sylva). In more recent times, many foreign dignitaries such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Yasser Arafat were welcomed at the castle.

The castle was featured within the 2009 film The Brothers Bloom. The exterior of the castle is employed to represent an outsized estate in New Jersey, the house of an eccentric billionaire played by Rachel Weisz.

The castle was featured within the Netflix original film A Christmas Prince and its two sequels, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby. It was also featured in the 2011 Hallmark Channel movie A Princess for Christmas and 2018’s Royal Matchmaker.

Present day:

A personal property of the Royal Family from the beginning, Peleș Castle was nationalized after King Michael was forced to abdicate and leave the country by the communist government in 1947. In 1997 the castle was returned to the Royal Family after a long judicial case that has been finalised in 2007. However, the former king expressed his desire that the castle should keep sheltering the Peleș National Museum, as well as being occasionally used for public ceremonies organised by the former royal family.

On 10 May 2016, on the Romania’s Independence Day marking 150 years of existence of the Romanian Royal Dynasty, the personal standard of Princess Margareta was flown on Peleș Castle, for the first time since 1947.

Carol I of Romania

Carol I (20 April 1839–27 September 1914, born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was Prince of Romania from the year 1866 to 1881, and then King of Romania from 1881 to 1914. He was elected as Ruling Prince (Domnitor) of the Romanian United Principalities on 20 April 1866 after the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup d’état. In May of 1877, he proclaimed Romania an independent and sovereign nation. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire, in the year 1878, in the Russo-Turkish War secured Romanian independence, and he was proclaimed King of Romania on 26 March 1881. He was the first ruler of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty, which ruled the country until the proclamation of a socialist republic in the year 1947.

At the time of his reign, Carol I personally led Romanian troops during the Russo-Turkish War and assumed command of the Russo/Romanian army during the siege of Plevna. The country achieved independence via the Treaty of Berlin, 1878 and acquired Southern Dobruja from Bulgaria in 1913. Domestic political life was organized around all the rival Liberal and Conservative parties. During Carol’s reign, Romania’s industry and infrastructure were improved a lot, but the country still had an agrarian-focused economy and the situation of the peasantry failed to improve, leading to a major revolt suppressed by the authorities.

He married Princess Elisabeth of Wied in Neuwied on the 15th of November 1869. They had only one daughter, Maria, who died at the age of three. Carol never had a male heir, leaving his elder brother Leopold next in line to the throne. In October of 1880 Leopold renounced his right of succession in favour of his son William, who in turn surrendered his claim six years later in favour of his younger brother, the future king Ferdinand.

The Prahova may be a river of Southern Romania, which rises from the Bucegi Mountains, within the Southern Carpathians. It flows into the Ialomița near Adâncata. The upper reach of the river, is usually called the Prahovița.

It has a length of 193 km (120 mi), of which 6 km (3.7 mi) are in Brașov County, 161 km (100 mi) are in Prahova County and the last 16 km (9.9 mi) are in Ialomița County. The basin of the Prahova covers 3,738 km2 (1,443 sq mi), which is about 75% of the area of Prahova County.

Michael i used to be the last King of Romania, reigning from 20 July 1927 to eight June 1930 and again from 6 September 1940 until his forced abdication on 30 December 1947.

Shortly after Michael’s birth, his father, prince Carol of Romania, had get entangled during a controversial relationship with Magda Lupescu. In 1925, Carol was pressured to renounce his rights to the throne and then he moved to Paris in exile with Lupescu. In the year 1927, Michael ascended the throne, following the death of his grandfather King Ferdinand I. As Michael was still a minor, a regency council was instituted, composed of his uncle Prince Nicholas, Patriarch Miron Cristea, and therefore the president of the Supreme Court, Gheorghe Buzdugan. The council proved to be really ineffective and, in 1930, Carol returned to Romania and replaced his son as monarch, reigning as Carol II. As a result, Michael returned to being heir to the throne and was given the extra title of Grand Voievod of Alba-Iulia.

Carol II was deposed in 1940, and Michael once more became king. Under the govt led by the military dictator Ion Antonescu, Romania became aligned with Third Reich . In 1944, Michael participated during a coup against Antonescu, appointed Constantin Sănătescu as his replacement, and subsequently declared an alliance with the Allies. In March of the year 1945, political pressures forced Michael to appoint a pro-Soviet government headed by Petru Groza. From August of 1945 to January 1946, Michael went on a “royal strike” and unsuccessfully tried to oppose Groza’s Communist-controlled government by refusing to sign and endorse its decrees. In November 1947, Michael attended the marriage of his cousins, the longer-term Queen Elizabeth of the uk and Philip of Greece and Denmark in London. Shortly after that, on the morning of 30 December 1947, Groza met with Michael and compelled him to abdicate. Michael was forced to go into exile, his properties confiscated, and his citizenship stripped. In 1948, he married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma (thenceforth referred to as Queen Anne of Romania), with whom he had five daughters, and therefore the couple eventually settled in Switzerland.

Nicolae Ceaușescu’s communist dictatorship was overthrown in 1989 and therefore the following year Michael attempted to return to Romania, only to be arrested and made to go away upon arrival. In 1992, Michael was allowed to go to Romania for Easter, where he was greeted by huge crowds; a speech he gave from his hotel window drew an estimated a million people to Bucharest. Alarmed by Michael’s popularity, the post-communist government of Ion Iliescu refused to permit him any longer visits. In 1997, after Iliescu’s defeat by Emil Constantinescu within the presidential elections of the previous year, Michael’s citizenship was restored and he was allowed to go to Romania again. Several confiscated properties, like Peleş Castle and Săvârşin Castle, were eventually returned to his family.

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Originally published at https://historicalcastles.com on September 4, 2020.