Brunegg Castle (Kreuzlingen)

Brunegg Castle is located in Emmishofen, a district of Kreuzlingen. It is not to be confused with the much older Brunegg Castle in the canton of Aargau. Formerly, the Emmishofen castle was called Unterer Girsberg or Alt-Gyrsberg. Its predecessor building was constructed around 1300 and came into the possession of the Konstanz patrician family Blarer, originally from St. Gallen, in 1363.

In 1565, Thomas Blarer sold Alt-Gyrsberg to Sebastian von Herbstheim, canon and provost at St. Stephan in Konstanz, who also owned Mittel-Gyrsberg from 1567 to 1588. In 1586, the brothers Kaspar, Hans, and Rupprecht Mayer from Stein am Rhein bought it. In 1626, the property belonged to the Meersburg mayor Mathias Rassler, but just two years later to the Lords of Reding. In 1679, the brother-in-law of Wolf Rudolf and Hans Peter von Reding sold the castle to Obermarchtal Abbey on the Danube. The mediator of the transaction was Abbot Augustin I of Kreuzlingen, the feudal lord of Alt-Gyrsberg.

The wealthy monastery soon had the dilapidated castle demolished down to its foundations and, in the summer of 1680, built a pleasing long building with two stories and a chapel in the western part of the house. After secularization, the Princes of Thurn und Taxis and the Anderwert family were owners of Unterer Girsberg. In 1874, the psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger (1820-1880) bought the castle and named it Brunnegg because of its well. He commissioned the architect Emil Otto Tafel from Stuttgart, who had redesigned the neighboring Castell Castle in Tägerwilen and the Inselhotel in Konstanz, to rebuild the castle. At the end of the 20th century, the house stood empty for almost thirty years until it was renovated again and now houses a restaurant.