Dornhofen Castle

Schloss Dornhofen stands beside the Rabnitzbach stream in Hart bei Eggersdorf, a village in the Graz countryside. Built in the 17th century on the site of two earlier farms, it is a three-winged Renaissance palace with four corner towers and a small baroque chapel. The main block rises two storeys above a nearly square courtyard ringed by columned arcades. The building passed through many hands after the 1870s, once serving as a children’s home and later falling into decay. In 1972 the Strahl family began careful repairs and today the castle houses a restaurant and hosts summer concerts and readings. The chapel still holds its late-17th-century altarpiece showing the Lamentation of Christ. Visitors walk through the farm courtyard below and enter the raised palace courtyard by an arched gateway dated 1624. The arcades frame the courtyard on three sides, and a tiny clock tower surmounts the west front. Beyond the palace walls a park spreads out, with two fishponds fed by the stream and the fortified farm buildings still guarding the approach.