In 1527 František Révay acquired Sklabiňa, and with it the office of župan of Turiec — the head of the county. In this family's case the office became hereditary, passing from father to son for close to four hundred years, so that castle, estate and county government were effectively one thing. Between 1610 and 1612 the Révays built a comfortable Renaissance manor inside the outer defences: a regular block with the window rhythm of a house, standing in the middle of a fortress. Turiec never had an Ottoman garrison on its soil — the frontier stopped far to the south, on the line of Fiľakovo — but the county taxed for that war, raised men for it and argued about it in this courtyard for a hundred and fifty years.V roku 1527 získal Sklabiňu František Révai a s ňou aj úrad župana Turčianskej stolice. V prípade tohto rodu sa úrad stal dedičným a odovzdával sa z otca na syna takmer štyristo rokov, takže hrad, panstvo a stoličná správa boli v skutočnosti jedna vec. V rokoch 1610 až 1612 postavili Révaiovci vo vonkajšom opevnení pohodlný renesančný kaštieľ: pravidelný blok s okenným rytmom obytného domu, stojaci uprostred pevnosti. Turiec nikdy nemal osmanskú posádku na svojom území — hranica sa zastavila ďaleko na juhu, na línii Fiľakova — no stolica na tú vojnu vyberala dane, stavala vojakov a hádala sa o ňu na tomto nádvorí stopäťdesiat rokov.
