Utvin (Ötvény, Utwin) – Timiș County
Not far from Timișoara, a deserted mansion is being swallowed by wild vegetation, hidden from the eyes of the world. The Rónay Mansion of Utvin, once a symbol of elegance, is today a ruin without a future. Only its bare walls remain, along with the chilling legend of a young woman said to haunt the empty rooms.
The Rónay Mansion — a ruin between Șag and Utvin, Timiș County
Standing between the villages of Șag and Utvin, the Rónay Mansion was built in 1896 by engineer Kovács Ákos. In 1904, the mansion, along with the 550 acres of land previously owned by Oláh Miklós, was purchased by Rónay Mihály. Mihály (August 1, 1871 – March 11, 1941) was a descendant of the famous Oexel family of Bavaria, which, given its Tyrolean origins and later settlement in the Hungarian village of Kiszombor, had become rooted in the Hungarian nobility. On February 26, 1846, the Oexel family was granted the right to change its name to Rónay, with the title „de Zombor.” Yet Mihály, a former cavalry officer, disliked the estate near Makó and moved instead to the plains of the Banat.
Together with Watz Bálint, Rónay Mihály became one of the leading landowners in the area, known for his agricultural activities. His wife, Baroness Leonhardi Marianne, boasted of the new residence’s 11 rooms. In its heyday, the Rónay Mansion held a vast library of more than 4.000 books. Ornamental tiled stoves, large luminous windows, furniture and decorations brought from abroad, arched entrances, doors with special wrought-iron fittings… Flower beds and a park with rare tree species completed the luxurious image of the estate named „Szentmárialiget.” But the Rónay family’s story took a dark turn after the First World War.
The Rónay Mansion of Utvin, „stolen” with the help of Aurel Cosma?
After the Great Union, Rónay Mihály put the mansion in Utvin up for sale. According to the memoirs of his younger brother Elemér, however, the estate fraudulently ended up in the hands of Ilie Olariu, a Romanian legionnaire from Italy, and his wife, Paraschiva Pasca. She was said to have been the secretary of deputy Aurel Cosma, the politician who adopted the resolution on Transylvania’s union with Romania. Elemér claimed that Cosma, then Minister of Public Works, had helped Olariu falsify the ownership documents. Left without money and without his mansion, Mihály was forced to leave in the middle of the night, as Elemér testified.
After struggling in vain to recover the mansion, the lives of Rónay Mihály and his family took a tragic turn. Mihály, Marianne, and their only surviving child, Ferenc, moved to Timișoara, surviving by selling their remaining valuables. Ferenc’s engagement to Lili Lützow of Bavaria collapsed, and the Rónay fortune was slowly scattered. After the death of his wife on January 1, 1933, Mihály fell ill, and until his death lived a life of failure and deep poverty. „He was the most tormented by fate in our family, the one who suffered the most,” recalled Rónay Elemér in The History of the Rónay de Zombor Family.
The Rónay Mansion of Utvin, haunted by a young woman’s ghost?
The interwar history of the mansion has been lost to time. What happened to the new owners is unknown. It seems that once lavish hunting parties were held here with local landowners and aristocrats. What is certain is that after the communists came to power and nationalization began, the mansion was turned into the headquarters of the State Agricultural Enterprise. The cellar became a canteen for workers, while the mansion itself hosted a primary school for their children. And sometimes even big parties for party officials. After the Revolution, shepherds used it as shelter and thieves plundered it. Only its ruins remain, „guarded” by a haunting local legend.
The story goes that the daughter of one of the barons who once owned the mansion fell in love with a handsome but poor young man. They met in secret in the mansion’s park, until the girl’s wealthy father eventually caught them. Enraged, the nobleman shot the unfortunate lover. Grief-stricken, the young woman rode in search of her beloved, but drowned in the murky waters of the Timiș River. It is said that on nights with a full moon, a strange light appears at the mansion’s windows, and the young woman’s white silhouette still wanders the rooms of the Rónay Mansion. Who this lady was, no one knows. But what is certain is that today resignation and neglect „haunt” the crumbling walls.
The freshly asphalted road between Utvin and Șag, passing in front of the mansion, appears as a faint glimmer of hope for its future. The nearby farm still breaks the silence of the plain where the Rónay Mansion stands. The ghost of a young girl haunts this house; Banat itself is haunted by the ghost of peaceful multiculturalism…