When the land recently changed the owner, we were approached with an ambitious plan to restore the lost glory and splendour of this special place. A new house, modern but respectful of the natural and historic qualities of the site and its fragile surroundings, will be built on the burnt-out site of the original building.

Just as the snow clouds roll over Smědava Mountain, the stories of people's lives, landscapes and houses roll evenly forward. Time is the master here, without shame or mercy again and again it shifts the switches of fates of the people who live in the mountains. The landscape changes with those people, just as the honeysuckle blooms every year in the Jizera meadows.

One of the endless stories of the Jizera Mountains is the story of the Hunting Lodge in Smědava. Let's look back together to the time when it all started so we can begin to tell a new story.

When the Clam-Gallas family built the great Jizera Game Reserve in the mid-nineteenth century, it was an incredible work of art, and very expensive by the standards of the time. In the middle of the Jizera Mountains, a fenced area of fifty-five square kilometres was created. It was built for the convenient hunting of the nobility so the prey couldnt escape to wilderness or to foreign estates.

Sixty years later, Franz Clam-Gallas decided to improve the facilities of the game preserve by building a new hunting lodge. The choice of location corresponded to the most accessible area below Smědava Mountain. There, between 1910 and 1911, the Frýdlant builder Josef Hönig built a new hunting lodge for Franz. The location of the chateau was connected to the hunting trails that crossed between the best hunting grounds for hunting deer. The place became a hunting base for many important personalities, esteemed counts and government officials.

When the land recently changed the owner, we were approached with an ambitious plan to restore the lost glory and splendour of this special place. A new house, modern but respectful of the natural and historic qualities of the site and its fragile surroundings, will be built on the burnt-out site of the original building.

The new house is made of Jizera wood and Rudolf granite. The building is axially divided into two apartments. One can enter the house through a stone underground part, where there is a common facility for storing and servicing skis or bicycles. The ski room is connected to the private areas of the apartments. Guests can go up one floor to the living floor with kitchen, dining room and lounge, or use the sauna, which is ready to let tired athletes rest. One floor up is the already mentioned living area.

The bedrooms are on the second floor. The accommodation capacity of each apartment is 12 places on the bedroom floor and a few more places in the open living loft, which should also serve as a playroom for children.  

Granite and wood permeate the interior and exterior of the house. The exterior of the building honours the rules of building in the protected environment of the Jizera Mountains. But that doesn't mean it's stuck in the nineteenth century. It proudly demonstrates that it is possible to build in the mountains in a modern way, but with respect for nature and historical tradition.

Near the entrance to the property is a former carriage garage, which is being transformed into a separate apartment in the same spirit as the main building.

The garden is a special chapter of the story. Surprisingly, there are plant species on the property for which the Jizera Mountains are not a usual habitat. The unusual flora is the result of the original owners' efforts to create a small botanical garden on the land adjacent to the chateau. We would like to sensitively restore the garden. However, we do not want to forcibly cultivate it. Our intention is to keep the garden as a Jizera meadow. What is left of the original non-native planting will always remind us that this place has a deep history that we should not forget.

The story we are writing is without end. We don't know how it will continue. But the important thing is that together with our clients we are building upon all the good that has been here. We are restoring a precious place that will become for a long time an image of the coexistence of people with nature, a beacon of home in the harsh climate of the mountains. So may only fog, wind and time be the companions of this house, may it serve in the peaceful times of today and not meet the same ragged fate that befell its predecessor.