Imre VI Esterházy’s son, Pál Esterházy served as a major in the 48th War of Independence. According to contemporary records, he participated in sixty-two battles. He called 8 young men of his beauty to arms, five of whom never returned from the fighting. One of them saved the Count’s life.
On November 19, 1862, Móric Esterházy, György Apponyi, György Majláth and Ferenc Deák held a secret meeting in Szépalma to discuss the possibilities of reconciliation between the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria. Similar initiatives resulted in the Austro-Hungarian reconciliation of 1867, which paved the way for Hungary’s capitalist development.
In the years after the First World War, Szépalma was owned by the bohemian and notoriously frivolous Pál Esterházy II, whose marriage to his sister-sister, Count Mikó Endre Pejacsevich, left the estate in Szépalma to the Pejacsevich family. Count Endre Pejacsevich is also responsible for the creation of the arboretum and the count’s graveyard, which is located a few hundred metres from the hotel. It is also the resting place of his son, the flying officer Paul, who died here at the age of 30, and of Count Endre Pejacsevich himself.