Château Mühlwang

Schloss Mühlwang stands in Gmunden, a town in the Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. The building began as a medieval fortress in the 14th century, serving the Mühlwanger family as their ancestral seat. Over the centuries it passed through many noble hands, including the Hofmann von Grünpichls, Schmidttauers and Hacklbergers. In 1622 it became a free hereditary estate under the steward Raphael Fraunholzer. By the 19th century the Solterer family owned the estate, and later Karl Klusemann built the Villa Klusemann in the park. The castle’s long history is visible in its architecture. The 16th-century owners converted the medieval stronghold into a Renaissance-style schloss. In the 18th century Karl Josef von Frey added a low-roofed front wing to the west tract. The result is a two-wing, three-storey building under a mansard roof, its façades articulated with fascias and pilasters. A stone well in the courtyard recalls an old local legend about a holy spring in Gmunden. Today the schloss and its outbuildings belong to private owners who have divided the interiors into apartments. The former stables on Linzerstrasse once housed a tavern, while the main building once accommodated a cookery school and seminar rooms. The two-storey Laubengang wing on the right still shows its stone central column and connects by a wall to the traun-side tract. Visitors can walk around the courtyard and view the old well, though the interior is not open to the public.