Keresztes Residence, Sepsiszentgyörgy

The house designed for the attorneys Károly and István Keresztes integrates harmoniously into the character of the row houses on its street and enriches the existing historic surroundings. This two-story building, which strongly hearkens back to the Óbuda Reformed parsonage, contained an apartment on each floor, one each for the two brothers. Elements employed on the main facade that are unusual in Kós’s usual architecture are the decorative plaster ornaments above the window openings on the upper level. It is impossible to determine without knowing the original design drawings whether these come from the designer attempting to respond to the character of the existing architecture, or whether they are an addition on the part of the client or building contractor.

The Keresztes brothers originally intended for their house to be a lawyers’ office. There was an office opening from the street and a single-room apartment with a patio in the yard on the lower level, while on the upper floor there were just rooms and a bathroom without any kitchen. According to the archival data, they received a permit in 1924 to expand the square building, which is when they constructed the new street entrance and the new stairway on the courtyard side. During the remodeling, the building was expanded by one apartment on each of the floors. The apartment on the upper floor is significantly bigger, since the area above the office and apartment below is taken up by a study and additional bedrooms. The remodeling project followed the details of the previous building so perfectly that it is almost unnoticeable.

The back patio was later built in, and at the same time, in the 1990s, the exterior of the building was also renovated.