Hotel Praha

Antonín Holeček, Jičín building contractor and successful construction entrepreneur, had already notched up numerous finished projects, including building his own home on Husova Avenue, when in 1893 he bought land on the southern side of the same street, on the corner with Fügnerova. The plot was propitiously situated en route to the railway station, while simultaneously close to the town centre, so right from the beginning, Holeček had in mind something special. As a first step, he erected a building with two above-ground storeys facing Fügnerova Street, with a simple historicist facade (1896).

What followed was more than eight years of toing and froing, as plans for the main building were sent back and forth to the town council for approval; not until 1906 did these plans finally crystallise into a design for a hotel. (We know of plans for a corner building with a tower, but these were rejected since the tower projected beyond the street line.) He finally got his building permit 1906, though works did not commence for another two years. The design underwent several partial modifications, affecting both the exterior design as well as the layout of rooms. The attic was newly envisioned as a place in which to establish a “hostel for less well-off summer tourists”. Despite objections from municipal engineer Bedřich Pek, who in his expert judgement on the proposed changes noted that, “in Jičín there is no need for residents (here travellers) to live on the third floor, let alone in an attic”, the building’s alterations were approved. A final inspection of the premises was carried out June 10, 1910, and at the end of the same month the first guest of the new Grand Hotel Praha, Alois Liška from Mladá Boleslav, officially opened the hotel for business.

This handsomely conceived building had a rectangular floorplan and mansard roof. Despite having been deprived of its tower, Hotel Praha became a prominent landmark, whose magnificence was incongruent with the Jičín of its day. The imposing, historicist building with Art Nouveau elements faced onto Husova Avenue, its main entrance framed by a wrought iron canopy bearing sign GRAND HOTEL PRAHA.

The street façades on the ground floor were banded with bossage. The first- and second-floor expanse is partitioned into regularly alternating vertical strips – a simple strip of bossage is succeeded by a strip of windows, where the rectangular space between the first- and second-floor windows is filled with stucco medallions with the figures of angels framed by laurel festoons. The main façade, onto Husova, has seven perpendicular tiers of windows, with the central axis rising above the entrance being accentuated. Here the windows have been replaced by glazed balcony doors leading onto small balconies circumscribed by decoratively wrought metal handrails. The central section is topped off by a segmented, undulating gable with stucco and Art Nouveau décor, the apex of which is dominated by an urn finial.

Inside, on the ground floor, we find guest areas with the necessary amenities, while on the upper stories (including the previously mentioned mansard attic) were located rooms to accommodate 50 guests. Each floor also had its own bathroom and flush toilet. From the very beginning, the building was centrally heated and gas lit from top to bottom. For its time, the hotel provided truly modern facilities, and soon also became a focal point of Jičín society.

After Antonín Holeček’s death in 1912, the hotel was inherited by his son František, who sold it with a concession to a then tenant Emanuel Pavikovský. After Pavikovský passed away, the hotel was left to his wife, who ran the business with her second husband Eduard May, chief brewer at the brewery owned by the counts of Schlik. Other modifications to the hotel were done in the 1950s following nationalisation. The hotel was privatised after 1989, ultimately resulting in closure and the onset of dilapidation. Thanks to the current owner, however, renovation has reversed the building’s fortunes, and now it once again serves its original purpose.