Sabała Cottage (Chata Sabały) Zakopane

Monuments

Drewniana, góralska Chata Sabały z zewnatrz.

Krzeptówki 17, 34-500 Zakopane Tourist region: Tatry i Podhale

tel. +48 601520221

A wooden, highlander cottage built at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, located in Krzeptówki in Zakopane. The building is an example of the traditional wooden architecture of Zakopane from back then, and yet it differs from a typical highlander cottage from that period. In this cottage, in 1809, Jan Krzeptowski Sabała was born – a famous musician, storyteller and hunter, honorary Tatra guide and companion and friend of Doctor Tytus Chałubiński.

Sabała Cottage, located in the Krzeptówki region, is commonly referred to as Sabałówka. This is the oldest wooden house in Zakopane, dating from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. It was probably built by Jan Gąsienica, Sabała's father, a wealthy mountain farmer and three-time mayor of Zakopane, although it is sometimes dated a generation earlier.

It is a timber-framed cottage in the oldest type of highland construction, with walls of sawn-off beams, typical ornamentation on the roof gables, and an unusual location of the door. The quality of its artistry testifies to the builder's great skill and sense of aesthetics and the size of his wealth, as it is much larger than others erected in the Tatras then. The cottage was built on a rectangular plan in the Silesian-Spis type, with a hallway-chamber arrangement and a sloping, shingled half-gable roof with two smoke vents. The entrance door and windows are on the south side, and the vestibule with cellar and cold room is the extreme room on the west side. It protects the large room called the black room, with a cooker and two windows, from cold winds. Through it, you pass into a small white room with an entrance to the attic room. The interior has beamed ceilings. At the end of the 19th century, two covered annexes were added to the vestibule, including one with a well. A bed for the parents stood in the cottage, and the children slept in the warm kitchen behind the chimney. Antique furniture, tools, household utensils and old family photographs have been preserved. A curiosity is Sabała's original violin. Outside, there is an old, covered well.

Jan Krzeptowski Sabała, known as Sablik, was born in 1809 in Kościelisko and died in Zakopane in 1894. Originally named Gąsienica, he took the nickname Sabała from his wife, later adopting the surname Krzeptowski. He was an honoured Tatra guide, folk storyteller, singer and musician, hunter and companion of the Tatra expeditions of Dr Tytus Chałubiński and Stanisław Witkiewicz. He played beautifully on the gilded instruments known as goosebumps, and his music interested prominent composers Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Karol Szymanowski. To this day, Sabal notes are still played by highland bands. The character and stories of the storyteller inspired Henryk Sienkiewicz. In his youth, Sabała was poached, and after the fall of the Chochołów uprising, he was briefly imprisoned in an Austrian prison. He was hardly involved in farm work and was more attracted to hiking in the Tatra Mountains and hunting wild game, old music and highland songs, or cheerful chatting in good company. The highlanders considered him an oddity. In 1873, he met Dr Tytus Chałubiński, whose friendship introduced him to the circle of prominent people of the era who visited Zakopane. Sabała, regarded a symbol of the old highland culture, gained numerous friends and wide popularity.

c as a residential house until the 1950s. After renovation between 1979 and 1984, it housed the ethnographic exhibition of the Tatra Museum. Today, it is a private family museum run by descendants of the famous highlander. The cottage, with its many family heirlooms and amazing atmosphere, can be visited individually and in groups. Tourists are welcomed by a wooden statue of Sabała standing in front of the entrance. Here, you can listen to the host's storytelling about his unremarkable ancestor and the history of the Krzeptowski family and organise highlander feasts or museum or nature lessons with an employee of the Tatra National Park and a Tatra guide.