Czech mountain chalet with a presidential past open to visitors

The Prezidentská chata mountain chalet will celebrate 30 years of being open to the public on Monday. Located in the Jizera Mountains, the chalet served as a lodge for Presidential Office employees for 35 years before opening to the public in 1991.

As a location reserved for the Presidential Office only, the chalet and its surroundings used to be a restricted area. It was not even marked in tourist maps, the chalet's Milena Lánská told CTK.

Though the current restaurant and accommodation services provided by the chalet were affected by restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic, it survived thanks to returning clients.

According to Lánská, the 2021 season has been rather successful and comparable to the previous seasons. Ninety percent of clients at the Prezidentská chata are Czech.

The lodge is one of the oldest preserved chalets in the Jizera Mountains. Around 13,000 people came to an opening stone-laying ceremony for the chalet in June, 1928. It opened a year after in June, 1929.

At first, the chalet served as the seat for an environmental association, but the building was seized by Nazis in 1939, later taken over by the Czechoslovak government, and closed to public for a total of 52 years.

After Nazis seized the lodge during WWII, they used it as a sanatorium for children from the Third Reich. After the war, the Association of Liberated Political Prisoners took over the building.

In 1956, the chalet was transferred to the Presidential Office. However, the building does not belong to the office any more as entrepreneur Dalibor Dědek purchased it in 2011.

Since November 1, 1991, the Prezidentská chata mountain chalet has been open to the public. It is currently offering discounts to anyone born in November 1991.