The New World (Nový svět) has its own unmistakable charm. A quiet, peaceful location, in close proximity to the Capuchin Monastery in Hradčany, “within earshot” of Loreto and its chimes. One of the permanent residents of the New World once said that the New World is most beautiful when snow falls on a winter night. You open the door in the morning and there’s just an unbroken layer of snow anywhere around, not a footprint anywhere…
The house At the Golden Grape is one of many houses in the New World that has the word “golden” in its name. People named their houses that way because very poor people once lived here. So they wanted to feel that at least something in their lives was valuable.
Some people also call this early Baroque house, built-in 1695, house At the Dolphin because its bay window is decorated with a two-tailed fish (not very similar to a dolphin). Interestingly, this fish is already a copy of the original fish. The first one was destroyed by a truck carrying wine to one of the local wine bars…
The house was built by Abraham Unkhoffer, who then faced a lawsuit by the Capuchin brothers from the monastery – they did not agree to the construction because they did not want people from the house to see their garden. They also wanted to keep their peace… Then a settlement was reached because only “blind windows” were painted on the back wall of the house.
Many artists lived in the New World – poets, painters, writers, and actors. And it was no different in the house At the Golden Grape. Here lived the composer Rudolf Friml, who in 1906 left for the USA, where he became one of the founders of the “musical theater” under the name of Charles Rudolf Friml (he died in 1972 in Los Angeles).
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