Villa Leliwa (Willa Leliwa)

The story

A three-storey wooden spa villa of 1897 with a usable attic, balconies and carved decorative woodwork, built in the Secession-inflected version of the Rymanów spa style. By local tradition Stanisław Wyspiański stayed here in 1901 and 1903 and painted a sunflower fresco in an attic room; the street outside carries his name. The First World War brought requisition as a military medical facility, and the wall paintings were covered or destroyed in the conversion. Under communism it operated as the "M. Fornalska" children's sanatorium and later a spa hospital. It now stands derelict — walls damaged, interior gutted, the site fenced with wire mesh. The Wyspiański connection is tradition rather than documented fact; the 1897 date and the current ruinous state are solid.

Everything that was here

• 1897–present

  Villa Leliwa (Willa Leliwa)Hotel

  Poland's greatest Art Nouveau painter is said to have frescoed a sunflower in its attic, and wartime medics painted over it.

  See the map in 1898 →

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Nearby history