History

The villa was built after 1864 and named Pod Scholastyką. It was one of the most representative edifices of the Zakład Kąpielowy spa company owned by Julian Zubrzycki. It is mentioned in the six-page Description of the Spa Institute in Rabka from 1869. More information about the villa can be found in the first tourist guide to the resort from 1888, penned by the local physician, Dr Franciszek Mieczysław Głuchowski. The author mentioned that the villa offers holidaymakers 16 apartments, about 20 rooms in total. The villa also housed the Austrian imperial post office; in fact, it served as a post office in independent Poland until 1929, when it moved to a new building. After 1929 the villa still performed public functions, e.g. it was the seat of the Spa Committee. During WW2, it was the seat of the Commune Board. After WW2, it was used for residential purposes and by various institutions and organisations.    

Description

The villa sits on the edge of the park, facing ul. Parkowa but slightly away from it. The structure is a good example of a “health and spa style” with some Swiss and Tyrolean features. The villa is built on the plan of an elongated rectangle with avant-corpse porches in the side façades; it has a two-bay design with a narrow corridor between them. It has two levels and a habitable attic; part of it has a basement. It is covered with a Tyrolean, gable roof, with a relatively low panel slope, supported on profiled rafter tips on the longer façades. In the gable façades, the roof planes protrude, supported on wooden angle braces. This half-timbered villa with brick fillings is plastered with the partly visible arrangement of structural beams in the west façade. The roof was re-covered with eternit. The front façade has seven axes with irregular articulation. The entrance is located on the ground floor in the third axis from the west. It is covered with a three-sided roof supported on decorative braces. The rear façade is similar but with a two-level veranda on the central axis. At both gable elevations, along the axis, there are wooden, two-level porches on posts, covered with shed roofs. The porch in the east façade has angle braces and full wooden balustrades. The porch in the west façade, preserved in its original condition, has carved decorative elements at the top of the pillars and an openwork balustrade. The windows are of a double-leaf and eight-light design. Beam ceilings inside.

The structure can be accessed from inside and outside.

Author of the note Olga Dyba, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 21/04/2016

Bibliography

• Matuszczyk A., Trybowska E., Rabka i okolice. Przewodnik i informator turystyczny, Rabka Zdrój 2001.
• Kowalczyk K., Rapta M., Moskal G., Szlaga J., Rabka Juliana Zubrzyckiego. Rabka Zdrój 2012.
• Ceklarz K., Ceklarz J., Gaweł J., Kuczaj P., Urbanowski H., Złote lata Rabki. Rabka Zdrój 2014.