The building was commissioned by lawyer Sándor Szemző in the late 1910s to be erected in Art Noveau style. Szemző continued to own the house up until 1917, when Ferenc Reményi, an army officer and traveller purchased it. Following World War II, the building had various functions; in the 2000s it was home to the local House of Arts.
Today, after extensive refurbishment completed in 2018, it serves as a research centre of the Institute of Advance Studies (iASK). The commissioner of the construction of the house, Sándor Szemző, was born into a Jewish family in 1876. He studied to be a lawyer in Budapest and moved to Kőszeg following his marriage where he opened his law office, and also worked as a representative of the town council. He served in the Great War then, having sold his house to fellow officer Ferenc Reményi, he moved his legal practice to Szombathely.
Reményi was born in Budapest in 1868. His father, Antal Reményi, returned from the US – where he had previously emigrated to – seven years before his son was born. He had been involved in the 1848/49 war of independence, then spent 12 active years in the UK and the US. While in emigration, he participated in several expeditions, launched by the US government, during which they surveyed large, formerly unknown areas.
In 1860, he travelled to Paris, then following the general amnesty, he returned to Hungary a year later. Reményi went to elementary school in Budapest and, at his father’s encouragement, he enrolled to the Naval Academy in Fiume in 1882. In 1888, at the age of 20, he passed his exams and started his career as a military officer. Between 1912 and 1917, he served as the chief commander of the Sopron Army School and was promoted to be a colonel in 1914. He was awarded with the Franz Joseph Order of Merit. In February 1917, he was granted nobility by Charles IV and the received the name “Kőszegi”. As it was revealed from council minutes, in March 1921, he was appointed as head of the army school in Kőszeg as a retired colonel. After settling down in Kőszeg, he bought lawyer Sándor Szemző’s house in Chernel Street for 54,000 koronas where he continued to reside until his death in 1940.
Ferenc Reményi was the descendant of a large family; his father had seven siblings including Ede, the famous violinist. Ferenc was a prolific writer, he published studies on military topics and travel memoirs and was involved in the compilation of the Révai Encyclopaedia. His greatest adventure, however, was the voyage on board of a new cruise ship, Kaiserin Elizabeth, where he accompanied heir to the Habsburg throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Reményi’s task was to record the events of the journey; he published as many as 19 articles in the Sunday News {MQ} giving an account of his observations and experiences of the voyage.
