Biały Domek, Warsaw

Biały Domek is a villa in Warsaw’s Łazienki Park, created as part of King Stanisław August’s Royal Baths residence. It was the earliest building raised for that royal project, begun in seventeen seventy-four. Dominik Merlini designed the house in classicism, a manner that draws on the ordered forms of antiquity.

Its square plan and matching façades give it a composed presence; a balustrade traces the roof edge, with a small belvedere crowning it. The marshy ground required exceptionally thick foundation walls and drainage beneath. The building served as a summer retreat, though the king rarely used it; his sisters and Prince Józef Poniatowski’s mother lived here instead.

Louis the Eighteenth also spent summers here in exile under the title Comte de Lille. Wartime devastation passed this house by, and restoration concluded in twenty nineteen.