Hernstein Castle is a castle in the city of Lower Austria of Hernstein. In its current form it was created by the architect Theophil von Hansen in the second half of the nineteenth century. From 2017 it is used for seminar events and as a wedding venue by the Hernstein Institute.
Seminarhotel Schloss Hernstein History
Hernstein Castle is located in the north of the village in the middle of a vast park with partial walls and artificial pond. It was built at the foot of a steep wooded slope on Berndorfer Straße under the remains of the 12th-century fortified ruins of the Hernstein ruins.
Between 1727 and 1730, Karl Josef Graf Heussenstein had the current Meierhof converted into a "house in the courtyard". In 1798 Freiherr Heinrich von Müller became the owner of the property and built the partially walled park and pond with the island. In 1830, Archduke Rainer acquired the simple estate, which consisted of four two-story sections grouped around a rectangular courtyard. His son, Leopoldo Ludovico, in 1855 decided to build and convert the building as a hunting lodge in the style of his favorite English Gothic and commissioned Teofilo von Hansen, who created one of the most important historic buildings in the English Gothic style. in Austria. The redesign of the facades was completed after two years, but the interior decoration lasted until 1880, as it was designed by Hansen as Gesamtkunstwerk. Hernstein has served him as a field for experimenting with new ideas, which he then built in his buildings on Vienna's Ringstrasse.
In June 1943, the sale of the castle by Anton Habsburg-Lorraine to the Erste Österreichische Sparkasse. During the Second World War, the roof of the castle was badly damaged and since 1945, the castle was the seat of the Russian commander in chief. On 1 January 1963, the Vienna Chamber of Commerce bought the property, adapted it and in 1966 opened the Hernstein International Management Institute. In 1976, to the north-west of the castle, a modern hotel building for seminary guests was built, to which a wing was added in 1994 on the west side.