Rosewood Schloss Fuschl

 hotel, castle, interesting place, listed building / architectural heritage

Schloss Fuschl is a luxury hotel located in a historic castle in the gemeinde of Hof bei Salzburg, in the Land Salzburg in western Austria. It stands on a peninsula at the western end of Lake Fuschl, a glacier lake. It contains a collection of old master paintings and a museum holding objects relating to the film Sissi, parts of which were filmed in the castle.

The tower of the castle was constructed in 1461 by Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Sigismund I. von Volkersdorf, who used it as a hunting lodge. The surrounding property had been the property of the Prince-Archbishopric for 700 years at that point. The castle was used for the Prince-Archbishop's annual grand hunt. The first mention of this is in a document dated 1545. In 1816 the Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg was dissolved and the property passed to the Austrian state. The structure fell into disrepair.

In 1833, the Austrian state leased the property, and in 1864, it was sold to Michael Fink, a master mariner from Linz, who was the property's first private owner. In 1873, the castle was sold to Fink's daughter and her husband Michael Erl, the Royal Bavarian military prosecuting attorney. They began renovations, and passed the castle to their son, Alfred Erl, in 1894. He used the castle as a summer residence until 1910, when he sold it to Fritz Steinbacher, the court master fisherman from Munich, and his wife Babette. In 1918, they sold it to brothers Edward and Martin Meyer, both tavern owners in Hof bei Salzburg.

In 1929, it was sold to Gustav Edler von Remiz and his wife Hedwig, granddaughter of German industrialist August Thyssen. They made it their residence and carried out extensive renovations. In 1938, following the annexation of Austria by Germany, von Remiz, who was a supporter of the Fatherland Front, was imprisoned by the Nazis in Dachau, where he died the following year. His property was confiscated, and Schloss Fuschl became the summer residence of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister,  who used it for diplomatic receptions for Germany's allies. In the final months of WWII, in early 1945, portions of the German Foreign Office staff were relocated to the castle from Berlin. After the United States military occupied the region, later that year, the castle was converted to a convalescent home for US Army officers. The von Remiz family initiated legal action to recover the property in 1945, but they did not succeed in doing so until 1955.

The castle was first used as a hotel in 1947. In 1950, a two-story extension was constructed, to add more hotel rooms. In 1954, Harriet Countess Walderdorff, who had operated the renowned Hotel Goldener Hirsch in nearby Salzburg since 1939, leased the hotel and expanded its international clientele, welcoming Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru that year.

In 1955, the same year the property was restored to the von Remiz family, it was rented to the producers of the film Sissi, a biographical film about Empress Elisabeth of Austria starring Romy Schneider. Schloss Fuschl was used as a filming location to represent Schloss Possenhofen in Bavaria, Empress Elisabeth's childhood home.

In 1959, Carl Adolf Vogel, a local "salt baron" who owned salt mines in neighboring Bavaria, purchased the property from the von Remiz-Thyssen family and continued to operate it as a hotel. He married actress Winnie Markus in 1960, and with their stature within post-war West German society, the hotel attracted even more celebrities and dignitaries, including Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who visited that year.

In 1970, Vogel opened the Jagdhof restaurant in a neighboring farmhouse. On 2 June 1975, President of Egypt Anwar Sadat and President of the United States Gerald Ford held a meeting at the hotel. In 1977, with Vogel's business empire collapsing, the hotel was sold to the Max-Grundig-Stiftung, which undertook extensive renovations.

The structure became a protected monument in 1981. In 1985, the hotel, had had previously been open only seasonally, was converted to a year-round resort. On 1 April 1998, the Rafael Group assumed management of the hotel. In 2001, the resort was sold to Munich-based billionaire Stefan Schörghuber. The Schörghuber Group's Arabella Hospitality division placed the hotel under the management of The Luxury Collection brand of Starwood Hotels, as part of their ArabellaSheraton joint venture. The Schörghuber Group undertook major renovations on the Schloss Fuschl from 2004-2006.

On 1 September 2022, the hotel closed for renovations and ceased to be managed by The Luxury Collection, now owned by Marriott. Arabella Hospitality selected Rosewood Hotels to assume management of the hotel. It is scheduled to reopen in late 2023 as Rosewood Schloss Fuschl.

www.rosewoodhotels.com/en/schloss-fuschl-salzburg