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SOPOT SPA
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SPA INSTITUTE
Th e beauty treatments menu off ered
by our Spa Institute always respond
to the requirements of our Guest!
Hotel Haff ner, ul. Haff nera 59, Sopot
Tel. +48 58 550 98 53, www.hotelhaff ner.pl
For most foreign visitors Gdańsk is the region’s calling card
but it’s Sopot that has been the region’s primary attraction
for visitors and for the best part of 200 years it was one of
Europe’s premiere health and spa resorts. As with much of
Poland, the city was hit heavily first by the war, then a chronic
lack of capital after. But this has all changed with lower
Monte Cassino receiving a complete facelift. Central to this
multi-million euro development is the latest incarnation of
the Resort House (Dom Zdrojowy) which you will find at the
head of the pier.
The First Resort House
Although there has been recorded settlement here since
1283, the history of spa in the city can be traced back to the
beginning of the 19th century. Attempts were made by the
Carl Christoph Wegner, a Gdańsk patrician, to create a resort
here right at the start of the 19th century. While his attempt
hit a wall, the birth of Sopot (Zoppot, in German) as a spa
resort was close to hand. But it took a Frenchman to make it
work, namely Jean George Haffner. Having discovered Sopot
while moving through Europe as a doctor in Napoleon’s army,
he returned here after the Russian campaign and became a
permanent resident. In 1823, he opened the first Bath House
which offered a range of treatments and baths. The first
Resort House was opened in 1824, changing rooms added
on the beach and a small pier built. This opening gambit
was a small, single storied building built perpendicularly to
the beach. The Bath House built the year previous offered
treatments, while the new building served to become the
social HQ for the area with a name for concerts and parties.
Haffner died in 1830, but his legacy didn’t. Stewardship
passed into the hands of the Böttcher family who added
another storey to the Resort House, featuring 12 modest
hotel rooms, while Haffner himself entered folklore, today
revered as the father of modern Sopot.
The Second Resort House
The year 1870 saw a new railway line connecting Sopot
with Berlin, hence sparking a stampede for which the
town was unable to cope with. The projects of Haffner and
Böttcher were simply not able to meet the new demand,
and the council stepped in to the rescue. The existing
buildings were pulled down, and in their place rose the
Second Resort House.
Opened in 1881, this was altogether a larger affair, built
with half-timbered walls, filled with brick and ornamented
with wooden elements. It moved slightly from its original
location and could be found on what is now Powstanców
Warszawy Street). A magnificent vestibule took centre
Postcard showing the terrace of the 3rd Health House
circa 1915. Courtesy of Sopot Museum
Sopot In Your Pocket sopot.inyourpocket.com
stage, opening onto the restaurants and ballroom, forty
hotel rooms were further added, as were spaces for reading,
music and billiards. Spacious walking galleries were added in
1895, as were concert arenas, and a magnificent fountain
unveiled in 1903.
The Third Resort House
Not content with what they had inherited a new set of civic
authorities carried out further renovations to the resort. New
complexes of baths were added in 1903 and 1907, and the
pier extended by 160m in 1910. The Second Resort House,
barely 30 years old, was no longer suitable for the demands
placed upon it, and in 1909 it was levelled to the ground and
replaced by a third.
Although a competition in 1908 had accepted two designs,
these were rejected due to cost and instead Gdansk
architect Carl Weber, was handed the task of designing a
new Resort House. In tandem with Adolph Bielefeldt and Paul
Puchmüller, Weber designed and built the new Resort House
which was constructed in record time between September
30th 1909 and 15th June 1910. An impressive complex of
buildings surrounding the Resort Square on all four sides,
the Resort House was moved slightly to the north to allow
the main thoroughfare, Seesstraße (now Monte Cassino)
to reach the sea.
The new Resort House was like nothing that had come before,
containing snazzy mod-cons like boilers, cold storage rooms
and a telephone switchboard. In 1919, and with Sopot now a
part of the Free City of Danzig, the famous casino came into
being. This was to become the focal point of Sopot, and not
too different from the bars and ballrooms immortalized by F.
Scott Fitzgerald. And while the Resort House had developed
throughout the 19th century so too had the town around it.
Sopot was experiencing its golden age, and even during
sopot.inyourpocket.com
SOPOT SPA
wartime continued to thrive as the R&R destination of choice
for combatants on leave. This was all soon to change.
The precise story as to what happened when the Red Army
arrived in March ’45 remains murky, though several eye
witness accounts suggest both civilians and soldiers alike
were chased into the sea by an artillery barrage directed
from the hills. What is clear is that after the Soviets entered
Sopot on March 23, 1945, the lower end of Seesstraße
was levelled. The Resort House was not reconstructed
after the war and the ruins were pulled down in 1945-1947.
Only a couple of original elements remained - a single
storied pavilion in the south-western corner the concert
bowl, terraces, fountain and the semi-circular galleries next
to the sea.
Damaged glories were knocked down, replaced instead by
60s and 70s monsters, whose horrid number included the
avant-garde (it was at the time) Alga building which housed
the biggest food outlet on the Baltic. Today you’ll find Szeyk
and Monteka operating from within. Of the other nasty
single storey pavilions that shot up, most were knocked
down in 2006-2007 to make way for the new development,
and are now fondly forgotten as a passing blur from the
communist years.
The Fourth Resort House
The latest incarnation includes around it the Sheraton Sopot
Hotel, a multiplex, conference centre and an impressive
range of bars, cafes and terraces. The development was
formally opened to the public on July 18th, 2009, and will
leave anyone who remembers Sopot of yore doing a double
take. Gone are the shabby pavilions and lego architecture
of the 70s, replaced instead with a sparkling development
that hasn’t foregone the past – the rotunda is a faithful
reproduction, while the fountain is a restored original.
May - July 2012
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