SZENTKERESZTY-BETHLEN CASTLE

The Szentkereszty family originates from the town of Szentkereszt, located in present-day Slovakia but formerly part of Upper Hungary. One member of the family, András Szentkereszty (I), arrived in Transylvania at the end of the 17th century, where he first held an office in Cluj (Kolozsvár) and later became a lawyer at the Royal Court. In recognition of his services, he received the title of baron in 1726. He laid the foundations of the wealth of the Transylvanian branch of the family after acquiring in 1727 the estates in Zagon (Zágon) of the disgraced Kelemen Mikes (II), from which the family’s noble predicate also derives. Several descendants of András Szentkereszty (I) pursued military careers. The most notable among them was his grandson, the cavalry general Zsigmond Szentkereszty (I), a hero of the last Russo-Austro-Turkish war and of the Napoleonic wars, who was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa. During the 19th century, several members of the family played an important role in the public life of Transylvania.

The manor house in Câmpia Turzii (Aranyosgyéres) was built by Baron Zsigmond Szentkereszty (II) de Zágon in the second half of the 19th century. After his death in 1891, the estate was inherited by his son, Béla Szentkereszty (I), who served as lord lieutenant of Trei Scaune County, member of parliament, imperial and royal chamberlain, and one of the vice-presidents of the Hungarian National Party founded in 1922.

After the First World War the manor house was purchased by Count Ödön Bethlen (II) de Bethlen, the son of Count Bálint Bethlen (I), lord lieutenant, and Countess Berta Béldi de Uzon, who settled on the estate with his wife, Baroness Margit Huszár de Mezőkövesd. Their children, Katalin and Ödön (III), were already born in Câmpia Turzii and spent their childhood here. The Bethlen family had earlier possessed estates in Ghiriș-Sâncrai (Gyéresszentkirály), which later merged with Câmpia Turzii, where a more modest manor house also stood, which has since disappeared. Ödön Bethlen (II)’s daughter, Katalin, mentions the estate in Câmpia Turzii several times in her memoirs. She also highlights that „Many interesting people visited us, Count Gusztáv Majláth, Bishop of Alba Iulia, his later successor, Áron Márton, who confirmed me, the poet-priest László Mécs, who called me <speckled Kati> because of my red cheeks and blue eyes. Albert Wass, Jenő Dsida, the Russian writer Rachmanova, who presented her work titled A bécsi tejesasszony in Turda.”

Katalin studied at the Marianum in Cluj and later at the University of Economics. In Cluj, during the entry of the Hungarian army into the city, she met her future husband, the aviation and hussar captain Károly Stipsicz. Meanwhile, Ödön Bethlen (III), like his father, studied in Budapest at the Ferenc József Gymnasium. As their mother had died early, their father lived alone on the estate in Câmpia Turzii during this period. During the Second World War, in 1944, the family was forced to flee. Through Cluj they first reached Hungary and later Austria. In 1945 the situation in the country seemed to ease, and Ödön Bethlen (II) was able to return. He settled in Cluj, but he was never allowed to return to his estate in Câmpia Turzii. Katalin, her husband Károly Stipsicz, and their children first settled in Hungary and, after the failure of the 1956 revolution, in Vienna. In 1964 Ödön Bethlen (II) received permission to travel to Austria to visit his daughter. He died in Vienna in 1968.

After the family left Câmpia Turzii, their manor house was plundered by the villagers, and all valuable objects were taken away. Between March and August 1945 a Soviet military hospital operated in the building, which saved it from complete destruction. After nationalization, a primary school functioned in the building, and from 1953 the library, several classrooms, and laboratories of the local high school were housed there. Later a new school was built next to the manor house, and its sports field was arranged on the site of the former park, in front of the building’s main façade.

The building is currently owned by the City Hall of Câmpia Turzii and has been under renovation since 2023. A cultural and educational center will be established in the building, where book launches, exhibitions, and smaller conferences and lectures will be organized. In addition, several rooms of the manor house, with their period furnishings, will evoke the early 1900s. In the three spacious rooms of the former wine cellar, a metallurgical museum is planned, commemorating the metallurgical plant of Câmpia Turzii, which played a decisive role in the town’s 20th-century history.

The manor house was built in the second half of the 19th century at the request of Zsigmond Szentkereszty (II), in a Historicist style. The single-storey building has a rectangular ground plan. In the central axis of the symmetrically articulated main façade there is a portico built with four Corinthian columns. Between the pairs of columns there was originally a finely carved stone balustrade, which during the communist period was replaced with a concrete parapet, but thanks to the restoration it has regained its original form. On the pediment of the porch a relief depicting the head of Medusa can be seen, above which there is a semicircular niche decorated with a shell ornament. The façades are decorated with straight-headed windows, which are mostly arranged in pairs. The windows are framed with plaster decorations, both individually and in pairs. Beneath the crowning cornice of the building runs a decorative row of consoles.

Katalin Bethlen presented the estate in Câmpia Turzii as follows: „The <castle> of Câmpia Turzii came into my father’s possession in the 1920s. It could be reached from the main road through a large gate. The main building consisted of fifteen rooms and two bathrooms, including the three rooms allocated to the staff. Two outbuildings belonged to the castle: one contained the kitchen, pantry, service rooms and the cook’s room, while the other housed the laundry and the driver’s three-room apartment, which later became the teacher’s residence. To the right of the main entrance there were tennis and skittle courts. Opposite the main gate, in the <other courtyard>, were the farm buildings, the coachman’s and gardener’s houses, a large wine cellar, storage buildings, stables, greenhouses and a large vegetable garden. Behind the residence there was a lake, and the road led through the orchard down to the bank of the Arieș River.”

Besides the Szentkereszty-Bethlen manor house, the Paget family’s mansion is also located in the center of the settlement, built by John Paget in the 1840s. John Paget (János Paget) was an English-born farmer and writer, the husband of Polixéna Wesselényi. The mansion was once surrounded by farm buildings and a park. The lake created in the park was connected by a canal to the lake located in the garden of the Szentkereszty-Bethlen manor house. In 1913, John Paget’s heir sold the estate and the mansion to the state, after which it became the headquarters of the state farm. The restored building is currently used by the town’s cultural center.

Câmpia Turzii was merged in 1925 with the neighboring settlement of Ghiriș-Sâncrai. The Betegh manor house built here is considered one of the oldest buildings of the settlement. We have little information about the history of the building, it was probably built by Elek Simén and his wife, Teréz Petrichevich-Horváth, in 1828. During the 19th century, it changed hands several times, until it finally became the property of the Betegh family in 1905. After nationalization it served as the headquarters of the agricultural machinery station, and today a kindergarten operates in the building.

1. Zoltán Bicsok – Zsolt Orbán, „Isten segedelmével udvaromat megépítettem…” Történelmi családok kastélyai Erdélyben. Gutenberg Publishing, Miercurea Ciuc, 2012.
2. Countess Katalin Bethlen, Visszaemlékezés. In: Gyöngy Kovács Kiss (ed.), Álló- és mozgóképek. Vázlat az erdélyi főnemességről. Korunk Publishing, Cluj-Napoca, 2007.