Gabrijel’s kozolec from Rodine pri Trebnjem

Gabrijel’s kozolec (hayrack) is a low kozolec that stood in Rodine pri Trebnjem. It was commissioned by Jože Gabrijel who remained on his father’s farm. The local name of the homestead was “at Gabrijel’s”, hence the name of the kozolec. Jože lived with his brother’s widow (the brother died in the army) and then left the farm to his nephew, Stane Gabrijel. For the last few years of his life, Stane was attended to by a distant relative named Božidara Cesar. In return for cooking and cleaning for him, Božidara was left the kozolec in his will upon Stane’s death in 1994. Božidara Cesar, who knows more about the kozolec than anyone, later sold it to Iztok Agnič – the last owner before the kozolec was moved to the Land of Hayracks.

The Gabrijel family owned a middle-sized farm and needed a drying and storing device. The kozolec was built by Vinko Klančar, a local villager born in 1905 as one of the ten children of the carpenter Franc Klančar. He was only fifteen years old when he took up the running of the farm and the carpentry business after his father’s death. He mainly did repairs on the older kozolci, though he did build a few, like the Gabrijel’s one, himself. It took four people fourteen days to construct Gabrijel’s kozolec. The oak for the pillars and spruce wood for the “late” (cross members) came from Gabrijel’s forest. Once the kozolec was complete, Lojze Klobučar from Dobrava went to look at it and commissioned an identical one from Klančar.

Gabrijel’s kozolec never changed owners or its location by the farmhouse. It was built on the side of the road with a path leading under the kozolec and then straight into the barn.

Gabrijel’s kozolec is 10.5 m long, 6 m wide, and 6.3 m tall.