Villa Felicitas

Villa Felicitas is a mid-19th-century country house in Bad Ischl, Upper Austria. It stands on a large park site near the road to the Wolfgangsee. Built in 1855 by the spa doctor Eduard Mastalier, the villa was designed in the alpine country-house style. Originally named ‘Villa Felicitas’—meaning ‘Country House of Happiness’—it later passed to the Koch family, who ran the Hotel Post in the town. The building is now protected as a listed monument under the name Villa Felicitas/Schratt-Villa. The villa’s fame rests on its royal and artistic connections. Between 1889 and the First World War, the actress Katharina Schratt rented it each summer to be close to her friend Emperor Franz Joseph I. The emperor often walked across the park to breakfast with her, even having a wooden footbridge made for the crossing. Guests at the house included the singer Alexander Girardi and the composer Johann Strauss the younger. In the 1920s the villa became a gathering place for artists such as Franz Lehár and writers who summered in Bad Ischl. Visitors today find a quiet villa set in its original parkland on Steinbruch 43. The house preserves the atmosphere of its heyday as a meeting place for creative figures. A restaurant and guest rooms continue the tradition of hospitality begun by the Kochs and later revived by the singer Linda Plech and her husband. The rooms and the garden still echo the visits of emperors and artists, offering a glimpse of the villa’s long cultural life.