Gál Éva: Margaret Island - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

The archdcjcal summer residence (water colour, Franz Jaschke)

Hay Field into Gubernatorial Park and Resort

Archduke Alexander Leopold, when Margaret Island had been “allotted” to him by the king after his being elected Palatine, i.e. Governor, addressed himself, amid a host of other responsibilities, to the task of rehabilitating this property that had relapsed into a primal condition during centuries of neglect. In the autumn of 1792, the journal Magyar Hírmondó (Hungarian Courier) reported that His Archducal Highness the Palatine has turned his royal attention to transforming the so-called St. Margaret’s Island, also known as the Island of Hares, into a spot of delightful entertainment. Well under way is now the construction of edifices and gardens financed from the coffers of his Royal Highness. Owing to these, the island will be largely restored to its former glory. The premature death in 1795 of the Palatine forestalled the fulfilment of these plans. His successor, Archduke Joseph Anthony, who was to earn his popularity as Palatine Joseph in Hungary, embraced the issue of developing the island into a gubernatorial resort area so wholeheartedly that when he came into possession of the property in 1799 he immediately proceeded to build a two-storey holiday house on it. The unassuming neo-CIassical build20