Romania: The court in his own family home

Transylvania, with its castles and legends, shapes the way Romanian architectural history is perceived. Beyond this region, Romanian nobility, the boyars, established themselves across the southern and eastern principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia from the Middle Ages onwards, becoming an influential landowning class.

The union of the two principalities in 1859, independence in 1878 and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Romania in 1881 fostered a new sense of national identity, reflected in architecture through a growing orientation towards France and, above all, Paris. The nobility and the rising bourgeoisie went on to build grand urban residences in Bucharest and provincial cities, many of which still shape the character of these places today.

Craiova, the largest city in the south-western Romanian region of Oltenia, prospered through grain exports by merchants and large landowners to Western Europe and acquired, in the early twentieth century, the sobriquet City of a Thousand Millionaires. The phrase is attributed to the historian and politician Nicolae Iorga, who described Craiova as the city with the highest concentration of boyars outside Bucharest.

At Casa Băileșteanu, on 4 Boulevard Nicolae Titulescu, traces of that era remain visible today. An earlier building on the same site was the birthplace, on 4 March 1882, of the diplomat Nicolae Titulescu, after whom the boulevard is named.

Gabriel Nicolaescu was born in a boyar palace in Bucharest, where he grew up with his parents and grandparents and still lives today. Alongside a decades-long career in the international hotel industry, the current co-owner has researched the history of his family's house: from his grandparents' accounts of boyar life and the confiscations of the Communist period to the unusual circumstances in which the family's efforts to reclaim the property eventually brought them before a court – in their own former home.

In this interview, Gabriel Nicolaescu speaks about his family's legacy, the decades during which the house served as a state institution, the architectural heritage of Oltenia and the future of the urban palace, which the family is now offering through a public auction.

The palace in the 1920s

Archival photograph from the 1990s during its use as a court

1. The architecture of Casa Băileșteanu
2. A family history: confiscation and imprisonment
3. A court hearing in their own house
4. War, occupation and Communist rule
5. The boyar houses of Oltenia
6. Boyar palace and fortified castle: a comparison
7. Historic properties in Romania
8. Who writes the next chapter?

1. Mr Nicolaescu, Casa Băileșteanu was designed by I.D. Berindei and completed in 1915. What distinguishes its architecture and what is its significance within Berindei's body of work and for Craiova and Oltenia?

Casa Băileșteanu dates from a key period in I.D. Berindei's architectural career and reflects the building culture of Romania's urban elite at the beginning of the twentieth century. Its composition combines monumentality with the restraint of a private residence. The representative façade, the carefully articulated reception rooms, the high ceilings, the grand staircase and the interior gallery overlooking the main hall all suggest that the house was designed not only for family life but also for formal occasions and significant social gatherings.

Berindei was skilled at adapting the ceremonial vocabulary of European academic architecture to the ambitions and identity of modern Romania. At Casa Băileșteanu, this can be seen in the balance between elegance, symmetry, considered ornament and functionality.

For Craiova and the Oltenia region, the house reflects the city's transformation into a modern European centre. It is the work of a significant Romanian architect and bears witness to the prosperity, self-confidence and cultural ambitions of Craiova's leading families in the years before Romania entered the First World War.

Round-arched loggia and richly articulated stucco friezes reflect the influence of French Beaux-Arts architecture, combined by I.D. Berindei with a distinctly Romanian architectural expression

Grand hall with upper gallery and skylight

2. Casa Băileșteanu was once owned by your great-grandfather before the house was confiscated during the Communist period. What has your family told you about that time and about his fate, and how has this history shaped your relationship to the house?

My great-grandfather's fate was passed down through my grandmother and other family members. According to their account, he was arrested in a park in Calafat and accused of spreading rumours that were considered hostile to the government. He was subsequently imprisoned for political reasons.

One night he was told to gather his belongings. A number of prisoners were to be transferred to another facility. The journey ended at a woodland site, where they were ordered out of the vehicle and shot.

His death was later officially recorded as having been caused by a heart condition. My family, however, was convinced that he had been executed. Certain details have unfortunately never been independently verified.

The uncertainty surrounding my great-grandfather's death, the confiscation, the loss of the family property and, ultimately, its restitution are all now part of our family history.

A 1962 commemorative plaque to Nicolae Titulescu alongside the listed monument designation

3. The house was returned to your family in 2004. How did you experience that moment and what was it like to return to Casa Băileșteanu as its owners after so many years?

My father, my uncle and my grandmother's sister had worked for years, with legal support, to secure the restitution.

There was a particular irony in the proceedings: the court hearing concerning the return of the house took place inside Casa Băileșteanu itself. The building was at that time the seat of the Craiova Court of Appeal. My family found itself sitting in its own former home, before a court to which it had applied for the property's return.

After the restitution, the Craiova Court of Appeal remained in the building as a tenant until 2012. The family members who had fought for its return then visited the house together. It was a homecoming marked by both joy and disillusionment. For the first time, the family could also enter the ancillary rooms and the upper floors. The house was empty. Valuable furniture and carpets, as well as two large Murano chandeliers that the family remembered from the time when the house was a private residence, had disappeared.

As I was living in Bucharest and had a young child at the time, I was not able to join that visit. I came here myself for the first time in 2020. Standing on the gallery in the grand hall, I looked down and tried to picture the house as it once was: the rooms, the social gatherings and the balls that had taken place here. At the same time, my own connection to this family history became tangible. I knew the house from stories, documents and photographs. Now I was standing in the very place where those stories began and could, for the first time, imagine how my ancestors had lived here.

The courtroom during its judicial use (above) and in its present state, with functional panelling alongside the original coffered ceiling

4. Casa Băileșteanu survived the Second World War, the Soviet presence and decades of Communist rule. Are there specific accounts or visible traces from that period?

In 1945, during the Soviet presence in Romania, the house was confiscated and placed under state control. For a period, a Soviet military command was stationed here. The duration, consequences and further details of that time are not documented.

The clearest traces of those decades lie in what disappeared, while the original interior architecture was, surprisingly, preserved almost in its entirety. That was by no means a given. Depending on their fate and subsequent use, many boyar houses lost their original character entirely through extensive alterations.

When the house was adapted for use as a court of appeal, certain modifications were made, including wall panelling and built-in elements, but these are reversible. The decades of use by the court ultimately helped preserve the building. It remained in use and its structural fabric was largely maintained.

Despite the losses, original decorative details survive: a tiled stove and painted ceiling friezes

5. Craiova and the wider Oltenia region contain many such grand residences. What is the significance of this architectural heritage for Romanian building culture?

The historic residences of Craiova and Oltenia show how local boyar traditions combined with European influences. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in particular, patrons looked to Western European architecture, above all to France.

These houses were expressions of social standing, education and cultural interests. French Beaux-Arts and neoclassical forms were combined with local building traditions and adapted to the way of life and climate of southern Romania.

Craiova was at that time an important political, commercial and cultural centre. Many of these residences still tell the story of the families who shaped the city and the development of the region. By comparison with Bucharest and Transylvania, however, this architectural heritage is less well known internationally. Many historic buildings in Oltenia retain their original fabric, and Craiova has developed economically and as a visitor destination. There are clear prospects for the future.

Casa Puiu Pleșia on Boulevard Frații Buzești is another period house through which the epithet city of a thousand millionaires becomes legible
Photo: Andrei Stroe, CC BY-SA 3.0 ro

6. How does a boyar palace differ from the fortified castles and Saxon manor houses typically associated with Romania?

The essential difference lies in purpose, period and setting. Many of the fortified castles and Saxon manor houses internationally associated with Romania developed in defensive, rural or semi-rural settings and reflect the political and security conditions of earlier centuries.

A boyar residence such as Casa Băileșteanu belongs to a different era. Built in an important city at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was conceived as a prestigious family home for social life and representation, not as a defensive structure.

Its architecture is accordingly more open and oriented towards display. The façade, the sequence of reception rooms, the grand hall, the staircase and the gallery define the house. Older castles speak of fortification and enclosure, whereas a boyar palace places urban representation at the centre.

Both traditions illuminate different aspects of Romanian history. Casa Băileșteanu represents the urban boyar and bourgeois class of southern Romania and a European-influenced architectural tradition of the years before the First World War that remains comparatively little known today.

Alongside Bran, a defining image of Transylvania's castle landscape: Hunedoara Castle
Photo: Todor Bozhinov, CC BY-SA 4.0

7. You are not yourself active in property development. How do you assess the market for historic properties in Romania and what has changed over the past fifteen to twenty years among buyers and investors?

It remains a slow process overall, but the worst period of neglect of Romania's built heritage is behind us, even if many historic properties remain vacant.

For a long time, these historic houses were regarded as difficult assets, something of a millstone: demanding to bring to market because restoration is costly, ownership can be complex and distant family members sometimes emerge with claims shortly before a sale.

Today I sense greater openness among buyers and investors. Driving through Bucharest and seeing which countries investors are coming from, which historic buildings are being acquired and put back into use and what is being created in this field, one sees how significantly attitudes have shifted. Authenticity, architectural identity and the quality of these houses cannot be replicated in a new building. That is increasingly understood.

At the same time, a viable use and a long-term perspective provide the foundation for the future of these houses. Few can sustain such a property on sentiment alone. For an urban palace, one thinks first of a hotel, a corporate headquarters or perhaps private use. The heritage authorities are generally open and constructive in this regard. Depending on the concept, public funding programmes may provide additional support for restoration.

The entrance vestibule: fine historic detailing is demanding to restore, but experience shows it is valued by buyers, who consistently favour properties that have retained their original fabric

8. After everything Casa Băileșteanu has witnessed across the generations, what do you hope for its next chapter?

Casa Băileșteanu needs an investor who understands its architectural value and the responsibility that comes with owning a listed monument.

The house carries the memory of very different times: the boyar family, the Soviet occupation, the decades as a court. Whatever comes next should respect the character, history and dignity of the house.

And I hope that one day I will see it again in its new purpose and, in that way, get to know it all over again.

The central staircase during its judicial use in 2006 and in its present state

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