27.4.2017 Forest traded for a castle ruin

Miroslav Šuhaj from Žďár nad Sázavou fulfilled his long-time dream. Even as a young boy he dreamed of having a castle. Five years ago he succeeded. He traded the forest for the ruins of Chrenovice Castle near Ledec nad Sázavou.

Šuhaj took a liking to castles when he was eight years old and went on a trip with his father to the ruins of Zubštejn near Bystřice nad Pernštejnem. He remembers how the castle was unmaintained and very overgrown, but on the other hand beautiful. Although he was only eight years old, he realised that the monument could not remain in such a state. And that's why he became interested in castles. He started looking for pictures, books and other information. He went to castles and ruins.

After the revolution, he saw an article in a magazine with the headline "We bought a castle", so he pursued the idea even more intensively. The journey was long and arduous, but in the end Shuhai fulfilled his dream because he did not give up.

"It is true that the beginning was quite ridiculous. For example, when I went somewhere farther away from Žďár, I calmly went to the local real estate office and asked if there was a castle for sale somewhere. They looked at me as a fool, of course. So I contacted several castle owners who had acquired these buildings in restitution. But no reply. So I had to work out the information by trial and error. Gradually, however, the first castles began to appear for sale," Šuhaj recalled.

For example, she saw an advertisement for the sale of Templštejn Castle. However, David Hamza bought it for 1.2 million. We wrote about it here: He bought the castle

After a long communication with the Forest of the Czech Republic, he managed to get the ruins of Chřenovice Castle in exchange for the forest. First, he bought a piece of forest near the monument so that he could exchange it. He studied the necessary laws and found out that such a procedure was possible.

Shuhai really fell in love with the place. After all, the ruin stands on a small rock above the picturesque valley of the Sázava River, where the Posázava Pacific line also runs. What remains of it is a twenty-metre high tower and the remains of three perimeter walls. In the past, a jar with Prague pennies was even found here. At the beginning of the twentieth century, local scouts had a dance floor under the tower and to this day the place attracts people to roast marshmallows over the fire.

Gradually, the new owner is trying to reconstruct the castle. In the beginning, he closed the tower with a massive lattice to accommodate tools and materials. In front of the tower, he and his friends made wooden steps, and in the tower a metal ladder and makeshift mezzanines made of scaffolding pipes. But that was just the beginning....

Sources: www.idnes.cz, www.rozhlas.cz, www.propamatky.info