Castle tagged "For sale"
The price tag for this 42-room, four-suite Hotel Palac Kraskow may be a bit inflated, said Jerzy Hendrich, director of the Wroclaw branch of Henry Butcher Poland.
But putting a price tag on a historic monument is tricky business, he said.
"It seems high, but it's difficult to tell not knowing the full situation," said Hendrich, who last week first heard about the sale. "It's not just the value of the land, but it's also the value of the business and it's potential value, as well."
In addition to accommodations, the castle complex houses a concert hall with seating for 300 people and smaller conference rooms for 30-50 people in the main palace building.
The complex sits on two hectares of developed grounds plus a grander 55 hectares of farmland and meadows, which some developers said could be converted into recreation facilities, notably a golf course.
The hotel, which charges zl. 280-zl. 910 a night, had an occupancy rate of 60% and was organizing an average of 5-10 conferences a month, said Sylvia Rommer, a Viennese restaurateur who manages the hotel.
The owners have been looking to exit the property for half a year, according to Yomaris H. de Brugger Immobilien, the Rottach-Egern, Germany-based agency handling the property sale.
Investor Gamko, an Austrian-German venture, touted its restoration project last fall as a labor of love rather than money.
Since 1992, when Gamko purchased the palace situated on rolling farmland between Swidnica and Wroclaw, the company pumped DM 5 million-DM 10 million into Kraskow to fix up the place, Gamko said earlier.
The sale has generated significant interest, especially among German firms that have production companies in Poland, realtor de Brugger Immobilien said.
An unspecified American company also made an offer to buy the castle, but Gamko did not accept the proposed financing of the purchase. The American company offered security from a bank that is not internationally known, de Brugger said.
Last October, Thomas Gamperl, Gamko president and Vienna-based antique dealer, received a first-place award from the Ministry of Culture for the best conversion of a historical monument into a hotel.
"It's not enough just to buy it, you have to give a lot of love and time to the place," Gamperl told the Business Journal last fall. He refused comment for this article last week.
"This was a ruin and everyone said that (Gamperl) would never rebuild this house," said Rommer, the hotel's manager. "For him it was just important to do it. It was not just a question of money. It was a story of the heart."
But putting a price tag on a historic monument is tricky business, he said.
"It seems high, but it's difficult to tell not knowing the full situation," said Hendrich, who last week first heard about the sale. "It's not just the value of the land, but it's also the value of the business and it's potential value, as well."
In addition to accommodations, the castle complex houses a concert hall with seating for 300 people and smaller conference rooms for 30-50 people in the main palace building.
The complex sits on two hectares of developed grounds plus a grander 55 hectares of farmland and meadows, which some developers said could be converted into recreation facilities, notably a golf course.
The hotel, which charges zl. 280-zl. 910 a night, had an occupancy rate of 60% and was organizing an average of 5-10 conferences a month, said Sylvia Rommer, a Viennese restaurateur who manages the hotel.
The owners have been looking to exit the property for half a year, according to Yomaris H. de Brugger Immobilien, the Rottach-Egern, Germany-based agency handling the property sale.
Investor Gamko, an Austrian-German venture, touted its restoration project last fall as a labor of love rather than money.
Since 1992, when Gamko purchased the palace situated on rolling farmland between Swidnica and Wroclaw, the company pumped DM 5 million-DM 10 million into Kraskow to fix up the place, Gamko said earlier.
The sale has generated significant interest, especially among German firms that have production companies in Poland, realtor de Brugger Immobilien said.
An unspecified American company also made an offer to buy the castle, but Gamko did not accept the proposed financing of the purchase. The American company offered security from a bank that is not internationally known, de Brugger said.
Last October, Thomas Gamperl, Gamko president and Vienna-based antique dealer, received a first-place award from the Ministry of Culture for the best conversion of a historical monument into a hotel.
"It's not enough just to buy it, you have to give a lot of love and time to the place," Gamperl told the Business Journal last fall. He refused comment for this article last week.
"This was a ruin and everyone said that (Gamperl) would never rebuild this house," said Rommer, the hotel's manager. "For him it was just important to do it. It was not just a question of money. It was a story of the heart."
