Duchess of Plakentia Mansion

The Duchess of Plakentia was a prominent member of Athenian society in the 19th century. She was born in Philadelphia, USA in 1785. Her vast financial resources allowed her to purchase many estates and properties in Athens and the surrounding area. She constructed majestic buildings. She built a total of six buildings, two of which were mansions. One of them is the "Castello of Rododafni" in Penteli, the famous Gothic palace. Work on the castle began in 1840 and the building material was excellent Pentelic marble. The main building is two-storey with underground rooms and side outbuildings. The designer is considered to be the Macedonian architect Kleanthis, who helped the Duchess to meet with the Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Penteli and buy a plot of land. Inside the property was also the Rododafni spring, which the duchess had to repair so that passers-by and animals could drink water. The tradition, recorded by the French writer Edmond About, who was a friend of the duchess, was that the buildings were left unfinished out of a superstitious fear that the duchess would die if one of them was completed. Thus, after her death in 1854, the building remained uninhabited and dilapidated for more than a century, until restoration began in 1959 with funds from the Greek government. When it was completed in 1961, it was given to the Crown Prince and King Constantine II as a holiday residence until 1964. Today it belongs to the Municipality of Penteli and houses the Municipal Cultural Center. It is an emblematic place for the Municipality of Penteli, which houses a library with rare books donated by citizens, as well as events for up to 1,000 people.