Heritage preservation meets hospitality at estate in Romania’s Transylvania

Investment executive Nikolaus Bethlen has been driving a family effort to restore rundown, historic properties in and around the village of Criș, in Mureş county, and repurpose them as part of Bethlen Estates Transylvania, a tranquil retreat where the preservation of the area’s heritage takes center stage.

The Bethlen family, with a long line of politicians, diplomats and public servants, has had a centuries-old connection to Transylvania and the village of Criș. After the Second World War, the early communist period brought the disruptive wave of nationalizations, and Nikolaus Bethlen’s father, Count Miklos Bethlen, fled to Austria. When he did manage to return, during the second part of the 1960s, he brought his family along. For Nikolaus Bethlen, these were the first encounters with Criș.