Teleki Castle in Gornești

Teleki Castle stands in the village of Gornești, seat of the commune of the same name, on the left bank of the Mureș river, about 17 km from Târgu Mureș. It is a Baroque castle in the so-called Grassalkovich style, attributed to the Salzburg architect Andreas Mayerhoffer or his son Johannes, and set in a landscape park with allegorical statues. The estate was granted in 1405 by King Sigismund of Luxembourg to Antal Somkereki, whose descendants built a fortress here. After the Somkereki line died out and the estate had passed through the Bánffy family, it went in 1674 to Mihály Teleki. The present castle was built on the site of the old fortress between the 1770s and the early nineteenth century. At the end of the Second World War the building was looted and its library destroyed; part of the books survive in the Teleki-Bolyai Library in Târgu Mureș. The castle was nationalised in 1949 and under communism served as a tuberculosis preventorium for children. It returned to the Teleki family in 2011. Between 2023 and 2026 the castle was restored under the "România Atractivă" programme with recovery-plan (PNRR) funding: the roof and services were renewed, traditional techniques were used for the structure, and parts of the original parquet were kept. The castle reopened to the public in summer 2026. Visitors can see the great reception hall on the upper floor under the central dome, with two porcelain stoves and a fireplace, as well as period rooms that can be visited only on a guided tour. The park, laid out in the early nineteenth century as an English landscape garden, keeps old trees, including a ginkgo about 250 years old, and 11 allegorical statues brought here in the early twentieth century. The castle ensemble is a listed historic monument (LMI code MS-II-a-A-15689), with the castle itself listed as MS-II-m-A-15689.01. It was recovered by Count Kálmán Teleki, is run by the Castel Teleki Association and is open to visitors.