Heluan House, Spa hotel in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
Heluan House is a four-storey terraced building with a residential attic at Tržiště 387/41 in Karlovy Vary, built in 1893–1895 in the Italian Neo-Renaissance style. Its four-axis facade has a rusticated ground floor with an original glazed door and grille, a functional arched entrance and a raised rectangular terrace. The first-floor windows are arched, the rightmost axis is wider and flanked by pilasters, and the second-floor windows have segmental pediments supported by caryatids. A mansard towerlet with a dormer sits above the risalit, and the roof is covered in metal sheet.
The site's predecessor, the Goldene Krone, was damaged by fire in 1759 and rebuilt; by 1860 it was called Russische Krone. In 1888 owner Carl Pietzner, court photographer to the Schaumburg-Lippe princes, added a studio courtyard, then had Vienna firm Příhoda & Němeček rebuild the house in Italian Neo-Renaissance style in 1893–1895. It was listed as a cultural monument on 8 April 1991.
The house's name recalls its earlier German name Russische Krone, "Russian Crown". From 1888 the court photographer Carl Pietzner kept a photographic studio in its courtyard, and that studio survived the 1893–1895 rebuild. A porcelain shop with a portal beneath the terrace at the main entrance was created in 1926 for the owner Ida Söldner.
Heluan House stands at Tržiště 387/41 in the spa centre of Karlovy Vary, a row house built perpendicular to the street under the town's 1890s regulation plan. The original glazed door and its iron grille survive on the right of the ground floor, and a raised rectangular terrace sits to the left. The building is a hotel and is listed as a cultural monument, so interiors are not open to casual visitors.
The building was long known by its German name Russische Krone and carries the Czech designation Lázeňský dům Heluán. These different names reflect the mixed heritage of the place and the roles that German and Czech cultures played in shaping the spa town.
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