SCION OF ONE OF EUROPE'S MOST EMINENT FAMILIES COUNT CHARLES DE NICOLAY INVITES US INSIDE THE PALAZZO HE AND WIFE POLA HAVE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFEUN THE POLISH COUNTRYSIDE

"When my parents first saw it, the palazzo was just a set of ruins in a glorious location...'

- ANA FERNANDEZ DE CORDOBA & CENDRA & CRISTINA LORA ALARCON

The magnificent wooded estate of Count Charles de Nicolay and his Countess, Pauline, in the Polish countryside is just the setting you’d expect for a couple who can trace their lineage back six centuries. And the pair are as devoted to it as any aristocrats could be to their ancestral seat.

But, as they are happy to explain, the ancient de Nicolay title originated in France, not Poland, and this baroque beauty came into the family just three decades ago, when Charles’s parents bought it to save it from ruin.

Situated in the tiny, picturesque village of Krzeczyn Maly in the south-west of the country, the palazzo was built in the early 1700s and passed through many hands during the turbulent times that followed.

As the Red Army advanced during the Second World War, its then owner, Austrian nobleman Karl Philipp von Harrach, fled with his wife and children. Taken over by the government, the estate served as a school and then as a home for disabled people before finally being abandoned.

Salvation came in the form of Charles’s famously cultured parents, Count Ghislain and Countess Elisabeth de Nicolay, who came across it by chance, bought it and set about the huge task of restoring it to its former splendour.

Today, their son and heir Charles carries on their work with the invaluable help of his German-Polish wife Pauline, née Otterstein. Charles and Pola, as she is known, married at the palazzo in 2020 and have since become parents to two boys, Henri and Felix.

Here, they tell us why this is where their family is happiest and about their plans for the future.

Charles, why did your parents decide to buy this house?