Alice Dvorakova: rescuing ruins and turning them into getaways

Czech entrepreneur Alice Dvořáková has spent two decades turning a half-ruined 19th-century manor into a popular venue for weddings and yoga retreats, and is now running two more restoration projects at the same time — a family inn and a mining cottage in the Ore Mountains.

The story began in 2004 in the village of Salajna, between Mariánské Lázně and Cheb. There stood an old half-timbered building so dilapidated that it had made it onto the list of Czechia's most endangered heritage sites: water was pooling under the house, the rafters were collapsing, and the owner was selling the estate for just a hundred thousand crowns. Experts estimated that without intervention the building would not have survived more than five years.

Dvořáková, an economist by training who specialised in tourism and was then working for the Karlovy Vary regional authority, bought the estate with her husband almost on a whim — they simply loved the surviving coloured half-timbering. The couple had no clear reconstruction plan to begin with.

First they had to deal with the building's structure and divert groundwater away from the foundations. The restoration dragged on for years: the main building opened in 2014, and the last structure — a barn — was not finished until 2018. The couple tried to preserve as much historical authenticity as possible: wooden windows, the roofs, the distinctive creak of the floors.

The idea of running a hospitality business did not come right away — it grew out of a state reconstruction grant that was conditional on creating accommodation. While the building work was under way, Dvořáková went on maternity leave and had three sons. After returning to work, she spent two years torn between a career as a civil servant and going into business full time — in the end she chose business, and has no regrets.

Today the Salajna estate can host up to 40 guests at once; it is used for weddings, team-building events, yoga retreats and family gatherings, and the company works with the platform Amazing Places. Two more hectares of land have recently been added to the grounds, where a system of ponds is being created on what used to be a boggy patch — the work on the water feature has taken almost five years, and one of the ponds is planned to become a swimming pond with a beach. This autumn, five thousand shrubs and trees will be planted around it.

Besides Salajna, Dvořáková runs the historic Dubina inn on the river Ohře, which she inherited from her mother-in-law, and is restoring a third property — the Rýžovna cottage in the Ore Mountains, near Boží Dar. The surrounding area is under UNESCO protection because of the historic Blatenský příkop mining canal, which has seriously complicated getting the project approved: heritage authorities only signed off on the third version of the restoration plan.

“We just like ruins,” the entrepreneur admits with a smile, adding that her husband helps her on all of the projects.