The Farm Palace, in Peterhof

[NickNicholsonNYC]

Hi all.  After the death of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Alexander II, the Farm Palace was left to her son, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch.  Sergei and Ella rarely used the Farm Palace, however, after Serge was appointed Governor-General of Moscow in 1891, explaining why the palace was available to Nicholas and Alexandra, and why the Grand Duchesses were born there.  After the death of Sergei in 1905, the palace became Ella's sole property, but I don't believe that she ever visited it again.  I assume that the Farm Palace ownership, like the Sergeievsky Palace ownership, was transferred to Grand Duke Dimitry Pavlovitch when she became Abbess of the COnvent of Martha and Mary.

[Joanna]

Watercolors and photographs of the restored Farm Palace:

https://winterpalaceresearch.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-farm-palace-in-alexandria-park.html

Joanna

[Превед]

I always find the smaller houses tucked away in the grounds of palaces to have more charm than the main place - although I appreciate the others.

I absolutely agree - if the smaller pavilions, cottages and lodges truly are hidden, architectural gems on a more human scale, like all the Italianate villas in the Parks of Potsdam. But the Farm Palace really looks like a McMansion-ish oversized suburban villa and not quite like a minor imperial residence. It's primarily the confusing mix of styles (Italianate and English Gothic / Tudor Revival / Scottish Baronial with some other elements (Swiss chalet?) thrown in too) and the boring white plaster walls that give this impression. Maybe the restored palace will look better when it's more enclosed by vegetation, like it seems to have been in Imperial times. It needs to sit in a jungle-like, closed-off garden, because it gives a very private, almost plantation-like colonial or institutional impression.

To me as a Norwegian it looks like a curious combination of all the small secondary royal residences in Norway (Baroque Bygdø Royal Manor, Neo-Gothic Oscarshall, Italianate-Functionalist Skaugum, National Romantic / Chalet-style Kongsseteren, Classical-Empire-style Ledaal, Scottish Baronial Gamlehaugen and Rococo Stiftsgården), without having the pure and charming grace of any of them.

Even the much-criticized and rather similar Sandringham in Britain looks better, I'd say, because the brickwork and sandstone encasings enliven the façade much better than the white plaster of this palace.