He came from a family of building contractors. In addition to his father Antonín Holeček, both his uncle and his brother František were also builders. Following the death of his father in 1912, it was his Prague uncle, Bohumil Holeček, who became the guardian of Antonín and his minor sisters. The family continued to live in Jičín (at Husova 183) in the house built by Antonín senior.
With the support of his brother, he studied at the Higher Real Grammar School in Mladá Boleslav, and was already working as an assistant in the family building firm during his studies. In time he became independent, setting up his own construction company that developed residential, industrial and agricultural buildings, as well performing property valuations. His enterprise provided designs, calculated budgets, and carried out actual construction works. After the war he was forced to employ prisoners from correctional institutions. The reason was the need to accelerate the completion of apartment buildings, commissioned by the Jičín Local Committee for state military personnel in Nové Město (Kapitána Jaroše Embankment). This influx marked a significant increase in his number of employees, which later became a decisive argument for putting the comapny under national administration (národní správa). This was imposed on his enterprise by Czechoslovak State Factories (Československé státní závody) in January 1949, and from May he began to work for the same organisation (in the calculations department in Jičín) as a technical officer. Although national administration left his enterprise intact , in November of that year, national administration was itself abolished. Nonetheless, for reasons of not conducting a trade, a month later Holeček Junior’s contractor’s licence was declared to have expired by the Jičín District Committee.
In the years 1929–1932 he built eight smallish two-storey buildings, nos. 524–531 on the south side of Husova Street. Guided by the plans of Čeněk Musil, from 1931 to 1935 he built the indoor furniture market, in 1935 the west wing of today’s 17th November Elementary School, for what was the then the Boys Elementary School, as well as a building for the Higher Trade School (today’s the Secondary Technical School) in the years 1939–1940. He was also involved in the second stage of the hospital build, where his firm won the contract to supply the hot water system. Holeček Junior’s name appears in the years 1937–1939 in connection with repairs to the Wallenstein´s summer residence (casino called Loggia) in Valdice, where he carried out carpentry and bricklaying work.
(EB, RJ)
- Státní oblastní archiv v Zámrsku – Státní okresní archiv Jičín, fond Okresní úřad Jičín
- Státní oblastní archiv v Zámrsku – Státní okresní archiv Jičín, fond Holeček František
- Státní oblastní archiv v Zámrsku – Státní okresní archiv Jičín, Archiv města Jičín
- Státní oblastní archiv v Zámrsku – Státní okresní archiv Jičín, Berní správa Jičín
- Vladimír Úlehla, Václav Fejfar, mistr tesařský, starosta města, protektor Řemeslnické besedy, dědeček Václava Čtvrtka , Jičín 2008
- Jaroslav Mencl, Historická topografie města Jičína: dějiny Jičína (část I) , Jičín 1939–1941
- Jaroslav Mencl, Historická topografie města Jičína: dějiny Jičína (část II) , Jičín 1948–1949