Legend has it that Mikołaj Wierzynek gave the house as a gift to Casimir the Great’s mistress, a Jewish girl named Sara. The building catches the eye owing to its non-standard dimensions (the development on two plots was combined), attic, a large buttress and a textured, unplastered wall from ul. Sienna.

History

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the 13th-century buildings erected on two neighbouring plots fused into one building which quickly dwarfed other houses in the market square. Around 1540 the house was a grand patrician palace with vaulted rooms on the ground floor and spacious piano nobile rooms decorated with wall paintings. The whole edifice was covered by one of Kraków-first basin roofs decorated with an attic. From the mid-15th century, the residence was held by the aristocratic families of Zborowski and Zebrzydowski. In February 1574, Piotr and Samuel Zborowski hosted King Henry of Valois after his coronation ceremony. Back then, the Grey House was a magnificent residence with renovated audience halls, a new circulation system and reorganised utility facilities. However, its condition soon deteriorated and the owners began to let the ground floor to merchants, including Jews from Kazimierz who, trusting in the protection of the nobles, often bent Kraków’s trade laws. The thick walls allowed the Jews to defend themselves during a social unrest in 1682. The income from rents sufficed to pay off numerous bequests, for example, in 1641 Jan Zebrzydowski encumbered the house with a bequest of 10,000 Polish złotys for the Discalced Carmelites in Wesoła and the same bequest for the Dominicans in Gródek. In the 17th century, the house was owned by the Czartoryski family from Korzec and the Opaliński family. To make the house sustainable, the premises were leased to tailors and haberdashers. Among them was the hero of the Bar Confederation, Marcin Oracewicz. The renovation carried out by the Czartoryskis adapted the building to utilitarian functions at the cost of its representative qualities. A new attic was built, probably one of the last to be built in the city. After the death of Józef Klemens Czartoryski in 1787, the Grey House went into the hands of the Żeleńskis. In the same year, Franciszek Żeleński, the castellan of Biecz, hosted King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski in the house for dinner. But the process of degradation of the house was not halted. At the turn of the century, it turned into an ordinary, low-profit, tenement and a beehive full of various commercial enterprises. The courtyard became a bookstore. In 1864 the house was bought by the Jewish merchant Stanisław Feintuch, which for him was almost equal to ennoblement. In 1888 Feintuch had the shingled roof replaced with metal sheet and converted the first floor to make room for his growing business. The acquisition proved so successful that in 1894 Feintuch’s heirs changed their last name, and from then on, the decent Jewish business became to be known as Szarski i Syn. The local press ridiculed the change but the company, one of the best in Galicia, did not complain about the insufficient number of customers. At the beginning of the century, the house was remodelled once again. Before WW2, the house was the seat of the National Party and All-Polish Youth. It did not help, however, and during the war, the Germans denied the company to operate in the front section of the building. Yet, it survived. Unfortunately, in 1950, during the so-called trade wars, the communist authorities ruined it with excessive tax burdens. Today, the Grey House is owned by the Gray House Foundation. It 1990 it carried out a major renovation of the building. Today it accommodates office (e.g. the British Council) and residential space; a restaurant operates on the ground floor from the market square and boutiques from ul. Sienna.

Description

The present-day shape of the monumental, six-axis house is the effect of the last major alteration commissioned by Henryk Szarski in the years 1907-1913. Many designers were involved in the project because the owner kept changing his mind and expectations, yet the final shape of the building is the work of Ludwik Wojtyczko and Kazimierz Wyczyński. The interior of the store and the vault painting was designed and made by Józef Mehoffer. In 2009 the painting underwent conservation. The three-storey high pilasters on the market square façade have also been preserved; they lend the building a soaring look. As a result, the edifice does not look so heavy. The same effect is achieved thanks to the lace attic running over a prominent cornice. A characteristic distinguishing feature of the house is the gigantic buttress supporting the corner from ul. Sienna. The house has also preserved its early-Baroque columned portal from the 17th century, a cross-ribbed, painted Gothic vault on the ground floor, wooden coffered ceilings on the upped floors, and wooden joists decorated with polychrome. Even in modernist interiors and courtyards, many Rococo stonework details and decorations can be traced. The neo-romantic façade on the side of ul. Sienna is particularly impressive; it is the (unfinished) work of Teodor Talowski. There are commemorative plaques attached to the façade. One reminds of Tadeusz Kościuszko’s headquarters established in the building (1794), the other about the seat of the National Government (1846).

The site is partly available: freely from the outside but inside only during the working hours of the stores, offices, and restaurants.

Author of the note Roman Marcinek, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 20-07-2017

Bibliography

• Encyklopedia Krakowa, Warszawa – Kraków 2000. 
• Fabiański M., Purchla J., Historia architektury Krakowa w zarysie, Kraków 2001
• Komorowski W., Sudacka A., Rynek Główny w Krakowie, Ossolineum 2008
• Łuszczkiewicz W., Sukiennice krakowskie. Dzieje gmachu i jego obecnej przebudowy, Kraków 1899
• Marcinek R., Kraków, Kraków 2001
• Rożek M., Przewodnik po zabytkach i kulturze Krakowa, Kraków 1993