This photograph comes from the palace's restoration project documentation, recording the northwest façade's gallery arcade in the second half of the 20th century: a collapsed vault is visible, with rubble piled beneath it, and above, a battered balcony balustrade and dark, empty windows. Published in: Ferguson, D. Rūmų (G12K1) Klevų al. 48 Lentvaryje restauravimas ir pritaikymas rezidencijai.
This image is just one moment in the estate's long decline. During the First World War the palace was looted, some valuables vanished into Russia, and the park's stone bridges were blown up, their stone reused elsewhere. During the Second World War, the palace housed a military headquarters and barracks — causing still more damage.
In 1940 the estate was nationalized, and by 1957 the already-nationalized palace had become home to the administration of the Lentvaris carpet factory — old looms were brought in from the Kaunas woollen-fabric factory "Drobė," and by 1958, once funds had been allocated to adapt the premises, nearly 300 people worked in the palace; under Soviet rule, the factory employed about 1,300 workers in total. After independence was restored, the estate kept changing hands and languished, abandoned, for years — a businessman who bought it in 2007 went bankrupt that same year, and by 2012 the palace had been seized, its windows broken. Only in 2016, when Ugnius Kiguolis bought it, did real restoration begin, and in 2018 the estate received EU funding to repair part of the building.
The animation colours this photograph — making even clearer just how much damage time and history's storms inflicted on this once-magnificent palace.