Romanian state wants to buy Peles Castle

The Romanian state intends to buy Peles Castle from the Royal Family, a step confirmed by the Ministry of Culture.

Currently, the Government has taken the castle under rent for RON 2 per square metre, money taxed by ANAF. Overall this means RON 6,000 per month, ziare.com informs.

Asked by Pro TV private broadcaster, Ministry of Culture representatives have confirmed the Romanian state’s intention to buy the castle, “if there is availability from the Royal House.”

The state wanted to buy the Peles Castle in 2019, the value agreed at the time being EUR 30 million.

Until the deal is agreed upon, the new renting contract between the Royal Family and the state is almost completed, the ministry added.

Peleș Castle is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inauguration was held in 1883. It was constructed for King Carol I.

The complex is composed of three monuments: Peleș Castle, Pelișor Castle, and the Foișor Hunting Lodge, according to Wikipedia.org.

Artists like George Enescu, Sarah Bernhardt, Jacques Thibaud and Vasile Alecsandri visited often as guests of Queen Elizabeth of Romania (herself a writer also known under the pen name of Carmen Sylva). In more recent times, many foreign dignitaries such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Yasser Arafat were welcomed at the castle.

A personal property of the Royal Family from the beginning, Peleș Castle was nationalized after King Michael abdicated and left the country following an agreement with the government dominated by communists in 1947. In 1997 the castle was returned to the Royal Family after a long judicial case that has been finalised in 2007. However, the former king expressed his desire that the castle should continue to shelter the Peleș National Museum, as well as being occasionally used for public ceremonies organised by the Royal Family.

On May 10, 2016, on the occasion of Romania’s Independence Day marking 150 years of existence of the Romanian Royal Dynasty, the personal standard of Princess Margareta was flown on Peleș Castle, for the first time since 1947.