History

Kaposvar’s highest quality hotel is found in one of the town’s most tarnished buildings, this Art Nouveau monument built between 1910-1911 by Leó Baumöhl, designed by Budapest architects Géza Aladár Kármán and Gyula Ullmann. The hotel became immediately after its initial opening one of the region’s most important cultural centres.

Dorottya House, named after the heroine of Csokonai’s comedy epic, is situated in the historical town centre. A century ago, it may have felt a bit long walking distance from the railway station, but today’s guests of the hotel can only enjoy the advantages of its location.

Originally, the hotel was called Hotel Turul. The ancient Hungarian national symbol, the flag with the mythical Turul bird came into the foreground of attention at the time of the country’s millennium - that is the reason why it was placed onto the corner of the hotel’s facade. Among the Hungarian motives of Art Nouveau, the Turul with its spread-out wings emerges as the majestic lord of the air, a mythical animal connecting the worldly and the celestial dimensions.

This building, which is to this day a defining feature of the cityscape, is almost a praise of Art Nouveau. The building’s decorations are the work of stone-mason Imre Borovitz; experts often refer to the female head statues over the attic as the most beautiful ones in the entire town. Art Nouveau’s typically fragile lines, scrolls, and flowers are all over the building’s outside and inside, leaving no doubt about its style.

The hotel and the café used to be a popular meeting point of the wealthy civic circles and the land owner class in the years before the Great War. There was a café and a pool room on the ground floor, and a restaurant in the cellar. A regular guest in the café was painter József Rippl-Rónai who organised an exhibition here. His younger brother, Ödön Rippl-Rónai kept an artist’s table in Hotel Turul’s restaurant. Guests were able to choose from twenty to thirty local and international newspapers to read in the café. In addition to Rippl-Rónai, the hotel was visited by other illustrious personalities like Zsigmond Móricz, Zoltán Kodály, Lajos Áprily, Lajos Kassák, Lőrinc Szabó, Áron Tamási, and guests were often charmed by the music of the world-famous gypsy musician of Kaposvár, Szimpliciusz (aka József Barcza).

The break-out of World War II had a devastating effect on life in the hotel. The cultural buzz disappeared, and the formerly lively café became almost silent. In the period after the war, the establishment was called Hotel Peace, and the Turul figure was replaced by a huge red star among the ornaments. The general condition of the building dropped undeservingly as much as the quality of service.

Today the hotel bears the name Dorottya, adopted from the comedy epic by Mihály Csokonai Vitéz. Its amazing mirror hall, accommodating up to 400 people, is host to the Dorottya Balls that are held here annually since 1960. The hall was renovated several times since the world war, but a real modernization, and the restoration of a quality worthy of the original fame was only done at the latest renovation in 2011.