Jaunmokas Manor: A Neo-Gothic Hunting Lodge in Latvia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Latvia
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Russian
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page11 sections
History
Jaunmokas Manor is a manor house in Latvia, completed in 1901 in the Neo-Gothic style with Art Nouveau elements. It was designed by Wilhelm Bockslaff for George Armitstead, a wealthy Riga merchant of English origin and mayor of Riga, who commissioned it as a hunting lodge. Neo-Gothic revived medieval Gothic forms, while Art Nouveau added flowing lines and organic decoration. The estate had been mentioned in documents as early as 1544, and a wooden house stood on the site before the present building was constructed. That earlier house burned after being struck by lightning.
Construction and private ownership
Bockslaff began designing the manor in 1898, and construction was finished in 1901. Armitstead retained the estate until 1904, when it passed to the Brinken family. In 1910 it was sold to the von Ungern-Sternberg family, who held it during the following decade. Baron Walter Ferdinand Konstantin von Ungern-Sternberg became chairman of the district administration in 1916, during the First World War.
War, reform, and changing ownership
During the Latvian War of Independence, a conflict surrounding the creation of the independent Baltic states after the First World War, the manor housed the headquarters of an assault unit of the Baltic Landeswehr, a regional military formation active in the Baltic region. Before the Second World War, the Kurzeme Artillery Regiment of the Latvian Army administered the property.
On 24 September 1920, Jaunmokas Manor and its 1,325.48-hectare estate were transferred to Ada Snikere, the partner of German farmer Wilhelm Freiman, in a transaction valued at 376,400 rubles. Nine parcels were separated from the estate and transferred to relatives and acquaintances by 21 March 1921. Freiman later married Snikere, and their family had three children. They repatriated to Germany in November 1939.
Latvia’s agrarian reform in the 1920s nationalized and divided large estates to create smaller holdings for new landowners. Freiman tried to retain Jaunmokas until 1928, but debts led him to sell part of the land and the manor building to the Riga Municipal Hospital Fund. The remaining property was auctioned in 1933. During the late 1920s, the manor building became a children’s sanatorium.
Military, administrative, and museum uses
In 1940 and 1941, the building housed a Red Army sergeants’ school. After the German occupation of Latvia, German radio operators used it, followed by a military hospital of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945.
After the Second World War, agricultural administrative bodies occupied the building, including offices connected with machine-tractor stations and land-reclamation work. Later uses included a shop, a local club, and approximately twenty apartments. In 1974, a decision was made to transfer the manor to the Ministry of Forestry and Forest Industry of the Latvian SSR, the Soviet republic that governed Latvia during the period of Soviet rule apart from the years of German occupation. The ministry took it over by 1976 and began major restoration. Work continued for more than twenty years, and the manor was converted into a museum in 1989.
Since 1991, the building has housed a forestry museum devoted to forestry techniques and the history of forestry in Latvia. Interior restoration and fitting-out began on the first floor in 1992, while the second floor received a forestry exhibition. The estate came under the administration of the Republic of Latvia in 1992 and has belonged to the state enterprise Latvian State Forests since 2000. Since 2006, a dedicated enterprise has managed the manor, its museum, and the leasing of estate premises. The manor complex is registered as an architectural monument of national significance, and its tile stove has separate protection as an art monument.
Remains
Jaunmokas Manor forms the principal building of a central estate complex with a stable and several service buildings, accompanied by a small landscaped park. The main house combines Neo-Gothic architecture with Art Nouveau elements. Its physical and decorative features reflect its original purpose as a hunting lodge, while the surviving estate buildings show the range of agricultural and craft activities associated with the property.
Manor house interiors
Tile stove
The manor contains a tile stove made by the Zelm & Boehm firm. Its 130 tiles show views of Riga and the seaside as they appeared around the time of Riga’s seven-hundredth anniversary. The stove was produced for the anniversary exhibition and later presented to the newly elected mayor, who moved it to the hunting lodge. It has separate state protection as an art monument.
Estate buildings and park
Stable
A stable was designed and built at the same time as the manor. It contains 52 cast-iron columns specially commissioned in Saint Petersburg.
Service buildings
Other surviving central estate buildings include an oil mill, a barn, a carpenter’s workshop, a forge, and a storeroom. Together, these structures form part of the physical remains of the former estate complex.
Landscaped park
A small landscaped park lies beside the manor. Its pond is surrounded by an old avenue of lime trees, whose trees are about a century old.
Nearby sites
