Feistritz Castle

The first confirmed mention of Feistritz dates back to 1170, when a Gerhard von Glizenvelt transferred a farmstead in Vustritz to Admont Abbey. He was a ministerialis of the Formbach family. The castle was probably built around the middle of the 12th century.

Little is known about the first owners of the lordship. In 1366, Nyclo der Sachsenganger named himself after Feistritz. At the beginning of the 15th century, Hertnit von Pottendorf is mentioned as the feudal lord. The Pottendorfers had the castle administered by caretakers. When the last male representative of this family died in 1488, the lordship passed to Christian IV von Zinzendorf through marriage. In 1537, Christoph Rabenschüssel von Schönegg owned it.

He sold it as early as 1547 to Wilhelm von Rottal. The last Rottal residing in Feistritz was the minor Hans Ehrenreich. His mother sold the indebted estate in 1682 to Carl Freiherr von Pergen. Freiherr von Pergen had the still largely medieval building renovated and made more habitable two years later. In 1766, Feistritz again came as a dowry to Johann Baptist Graf Mitrowsky. In 1802, it was owned by Wenzel Josef Jähnl. In 1815, the industrial magnate Josef von Dietrich acquired the complex. He had the castle and the park redesigned in the spirit of early Romanticism. When he died in 1858, Feistritz passed to his son-in-law, Prince Ludwig Sulkowsky. Under him, the property was run down.

A turn for the better occurred in 1922 with the acquisition of the complex by Maximilian Mautner. He immediately began to have the already ruinous building extensively restored by the architect Marischka. Mautner had to flee to America in 1938. The castle first came under provisional administration and was then sold to Ernst Mahla and Reinhard Thurnwald. From 1945, the castle served as a Russian officers' casino and remained under the administration of the occupying power until 1955. However, it was then returned to the previous owners.

When the Austrian-American industrialist Henry Reichhold took over the castle in 1965, a general restoration was due. Even today, Feistritz still belongs to the Reichhold family.