Voiculescu Cula

Summary

A fortified boyar house (cula) of the late 18th century in Cornești, Bălești commune, Gorj County, with thick walls, hiding places and a Brâncovenesc-style loggia. The Voiculescu family regained it after decades of state-farm use and is now offering it with 10.5 ha.

Legal status

Expropriated in 1949 and run as a state farm; owned again by the family's descendants ↗

History

The cula was built at the end of the 18th century, when raids by the Vidin pasha Pazvantoglu pushed Oltenian boyars to build fortified homes. According to the sale listing, tradition says that Tudor Vladimirescu and his men spent a night here, then called the Copăceni cula and owned by the boyar Barbu Viișoreanu, before the Padeș proclamation of 1821. In 1915 the landowner Ion V. Voiculescu bought it and later gave it with about 10.5 ha to his son Vasile at his wedding. The communist authorities expropriated the family in 1949 and the building served as a state farm (I.A.S.) until the 1990s, which left it neglected. The descendants of Vasile Voiculescu again own the cula and over 10 ha around it, and Romania Sotheby's is marketing it.

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