Jana Zadak turns a Kutná Hora house into a boutique hotel, Czechia

Jana Zadak, an architect by training, has turned a dilapidated house in the UNESCO-listed centre of Kutná Hora into the Donebe boutique hotel. She is now a hotelier herself and is already planning her next project.

For many years Jana worked in project management: she was drawn both to design and to the actual construction of buildings. In her youth she worked at the French firm Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes, where she also met her future husband, with whom she built a family of six. Five years ago the couple had the chance to restore a crumbling house on Palackého Square in Kutná Hora. Jana decided to turn it into a hotel the town had never had before.

“The house itself is a cultural monument and part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and turning it into anything other than a hotel would make no economic sense. At the same time, I always wanted to do work with ‘added meaning’, and I aimed for that here too,” she explains. For the first few years she combined the project with part-time work at a development company, and after three years she quit and devoted herself entirely to the hotel. During the reconstruction, the family welcomed two more children.

The result is a hotel that has preserved all the historic features of the building, which has foundations dating to the 14th century: hand-painted ceilings, oak floors with a “Viennese cross” pattern, vaults, stone surrounds, old doors and a staircase. All of this is combined with contemporary design, art and high-tech solutions such as self check-in.

Figures and awards. Donebe opened in January this year. It has a rating of 9.8 out of 10 on Booking.com, made it into the Amazing Places selection and won the “Public interior – hotel/accommodation” category at the Czech Interior Award. The hotel has nine rooms, each with its own decor and mood, as well as a basement wellness area that is also open to outside guests.

Jana Zadak is now not only an architect but also a hotelier: she helps guests with their stay and works with the manager to iron out operational issues. “What surprised me most was how complex a hotel’s system is. Every room needs its own regime, and it is extremely hard to coordinate it all. We are still working on it, but I think we are close to getting there. And I really enjoy it,” she admits.

The hotel works with other businesses in Kutná Hora: the town, like many other Czech towns, suffers from a depopulated centre. Guests can have breakfast in the hotel café or choose a voucher for one of six partner venues nearby. “It is an unobtrusive way to lead people around the town. Kutná Hora is small, everything is close, and we thought it was a great way to show what is here,” says Zadak.

The hotel café has its own special touch: the house was probably built on the site of the medieval town hall, and an old window was discovered in the café during the works. The first Donebe hotel is only the beginning: Jana is already preparing her next project.