Schloss Nazza

Schloss Nazza stands in the village of Nazza in Thüringen’s Wartburgkreis. It is a private estate built in the 16th century as a manor with farm buildings. The complex once formed part of a larger four-sided courtyard that stretched down to the steep bank of the Lempertsbach stream. A side path called the Triftweg once led to the northern entrance. The southern block held four houses arranged around a rectangular courtyard, each with a stone ground floor and timbered upper storeys. The Hopffgarten family owned the estate for centuries. Georg Christoph von Hopffgarten and his wife Elisabeth dedicated the building in 1551, as a stone plaque records. His son Georg Wilhelm added decorations and displayed the family’s combined coat of arms. By 1816 the last owner, Forstmeister Hans Ernst von Hopffgarten, sold the property after the courts passed from private hands to the state. The ruins of Burg Haineck above the village were transferred to the community in 1835. Visitors today see the remaining manor houses grouped around their original courtyard. The stone cellars and timbered upper floors still show the 16th-century construction. The steep stream bank and the old Triftweg path give a sense of how the estate once reached into the landscape. The quiet village setting and the surviving buildings recall the Hopffgartens’ long rule and the later changes in ownership.