Hamvay mansion, recalling the Baroque age with its characteristic yellow colour, its wrought-iron lamps and arcaded inner courtyard. This is the defining building of the town centre.
The Gödöllő landowner Ferenc Hamvay had the building constructed in 1662, at the time as a one-storey edifice.
It gained an upper storey in the 18th century
when
Antal Grassalkovich I
, who originally commissioned what was to become the Royal Palace, had the building transformed into a guest house.
The town’s first pharmacy,
which had moved from Máriabesnyő,
was established here in 1814.
The ceiling fresco in the ground-floor vaulted room probably dates from that period.
In the 19th century the building became
t
he Queen Elizabeth Hotel and a centre of social life with its casino and ballroom
, where theatre performances were also staged.
A school functioned here up to 1988 and it contained a significant memorial room for a collection of items connected with the town’s past. Later this became the local history collection, which in turn became the Gödöllő Town Museum , which still exists today and presents what can be called unique exhibitions in one of the town’s oldest buildings .