Daunschlössl

The Daunschlössl stands in Salzburg’s Nonntal district, a quiet residential area near the old town. It occupies a site once home to a medieval fortified tower built in 1480 for the Salzburg cathedral chapter. The tower measured thirteen metres by thirteen, with a large hall on the ground floor supported by two stone columns. Archaeologists uncovered its foundations in 2010–11, along with coins, tiles and metal fittings from the 12th to 17th centuries. Beside the tower lay traces of an even older rectangular structure, possibly part of an earlier defence works. The site’s history includes a legend linking it to plans to admit Hungarian troops through the Almkanal, though historians regard this as untrue. The building later became a summer residence for the second-oldest cathedral canon, expanded in 1529 by Balthasar von Lamberg. Between 1528 and 1792 it passed through twenty-three canons’ hands before Carl Joseph Graf von Daun acquired it in 1777. After changing owners several times, including Mayor Heinrich Ritter von Mertens and Bertha Fürstin Lobkowitz, it briefly housed a cold-water bathing establishment run by Michael Stürzer around 1836. The present villa reflects later alterations in an ‘Old High German’ style and a 19th-century garden layout. Today the Daunschlössl is surrounded by a small park created from parts of the former kitchen garden. The main house serves as a government residence, while nearby 1960s apartment blocks replaced the old farm buildings. Recent landscaping has opened up the remaining green spaces for public use. From Brunnhausgasse the building appears as a modest but historic villa, its white walls and red roof blending with the Nonntal streetscape.