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Hostel Koss was created in the former estate buildings of the Manor House which once belonged to Tadeusz and Anna Kossak. The sleeping accommodation is in the “Scouts' Stables”, while the “Manor's Icehouse” serves as a place to meet over a meal or at the fireside. The Kossaks came to Górki Wielkie in 1922 in search of a new family home. Their previous one in Wołyń on Poland's Eastern Borderlands lay in total ruins destroyed by the Bolshevik Revolution and finding itself on the Soviet Russian side of the border drawn following the First World War. In 1923, following the death of her husband Stefan Szczucki, their daughter Zofia with her two little sons Juliusz and Tadeusz, came to live with her parents in Górki. Even then the Manor House in Górki Wielkie was more than 300 years old and had a rich past. In appearance it resembled a fortified castle which guarded the entrance to the truly beautiful river Brennica valley, surrounded by the gentle slopes of the Beskid Hills. The place hospitably took in the homeless family, while they fell deeply in love with it. The increasing reputation of the writer Zofia Kossak, the old Polish atmosphere and the outstandingly beautiful countryside drew famous writers and creative people to Górki , making it in the 1920s and 1930s the intellectual centre of the region. Górki was frequented by, amongst others, Jan Parandowski (writer), Maria Dąbrowska (writer), Melchior Wańkowicz (author and journalist) with his wife and daughters, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (the painter Witkacy), whose wife Zofia Unrug was Zofia's cousin. Jan Sztaudynger (writer) visited, as did Czesław Kuryatto – who painted the family and Wojciech Kossak who, because of his likeness to his twin brother, could not be told apart from the Major by the Manor servants and Estate workers, with his children (the poetess Maria Pawlikowska Jasnorzewska, the satirist Magdalena Samozwaniec and Jerzy Kossak a painter like his father and grandfather. For many of them Major Kossak sent a carriage drawn by a pair of handsome horses to the railway station in Skoczów. Tadeusz Kossak's Estate specialised in breeding cattle. A herd of fallow cows imported from Switzerland grazed the Bucze pastures. Milk was taken to the Icehouse where it was cooled and prepared for transport or processing. In winter great blocks of ice were brought by cart to the Icehouse, cut out from local frozen ponds. They were arranged in layers in the cellared area, buried in sawdust and floored over with planks. The ice lasted throughout the summer, right until the next winter. The floor of the building was always icy. On it were stood the milk churns with freshly milked milk. On hot summer days the Manor House children were delighted by the sight of a woman heading for the Icehouse, dressed in a sheepskin coat. It meant ice-cream for desert! In the Great Depression of the 1930s Tadeusz Kossak, unable to pay his creditors, decided to sell part of the Estate to the Polish Scouting Association. Thus in Górki Wielkie was established a school instructing scout leaders led by Aleksander Kamiński. The scouts acquired the Estate's yard with its outbuildings, the pastures and cattle. They decided to build new stables along the South side of the yard, right by the Manor House. In these stables mares with their foals took residence, the latter wandered freely and often looked in at the Manor House windows hoping for tasty treat. The War came. The Estate was occupied by the Germans. In 1945 following the end of the War the Manor House was gutted by fire. The farm yard declined. The scouts were forced to leave. The previous owners had been thrown abroad by the War. Nobody was left to repair the devastated buildings. Part of the Estate was parcelled out and a collective farm created. With the passing of years the stables became empty, tractors replaced horses, the icehouse became a store. The farmyard fell into complete ruin. In 1973 the house which, before the War, had been home to the Kossak's gardener became the Zofia Kossak Szatkowska biographical museum. Once more the Museum and park by the Manor House ruins started to be visited by people interested in the life and works of the great author. Concerned for the immediate surroundings, a grandaughter of the writer decided to enliven the place by adapting the old stables and icehouse into Hostel Koss. On 16 June 2007 it officially started its activities, opening its doors wide to guests from near and far. In some ways, history had come full circle!