Emsburg Castle

The Emsburg, also known as the Kreuzhof, Ritterhof, Lambergschloss, or Kloster Emsburg, is located at Hellbrunner Allee 52 in Salzburg.

The palace was built almost concurrently with Hellbrunn Palace in 1619 and 1620 by Johann Sigmund von Mabon, the captain of the life guard by Markus Sittikus, including the associated mill and the ornate palace garden with its eight bridges over the Hellbrunnerbach (Mühlbach).Although the palace was not finished when Prince Archbishop Markus Sittikus died, his successor Paris Lodron affirmed the promised further funding for Johann Siegfried von Mabon.Through Ursula Maria von Mabon’s marriage, the Emsburg estate quickly passed to the Barons of Rehlingen.

Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun purchased it in 1701 to gift to the Order of St. Rupert.All doors and window shutters were painted with the order’s cross during the time, giving rise to the names Kreuzhof and Ritterhof.The Rupertiorden was dissolved in 1811, and the territory was inherited by the St. Peter monastery, who sold it to the Salzburg governor Hugo Graf Lamberg in 1868, Sigmund Graf Thun Hohenstein in 1873, and Kunibert Graf Lamberg in 1880.Thun Hohenstein tasked architect Josef Wessicken with historicizing the building modifications.The National Socialists came in here in 1938, and the Emsburg was entrusted to the German Reich Forestry Office in 1941.

The castle functioned as the mother residence of the Hallein School Sisters beginning in 1948.The outbuildings immediately on Hellbrunner Allee were raised by one level at the time and modified extensively from the original architectural plan.

The castle rests on a high base with terraces all around (after the castle is located in the old flood region of the Salzach).The spectacular double-armed staircase in the castle’s east goes up to the castle door, which was covered with columns in the nineteenth century.Four thin obelisks stand at the corners of the palace, which has a high hipped roof.The stairwell is connected to the western facade.

Many of the preserved paintings inside the castle are of past commanders of the knightly order.

The Halleiner sisters’ mother home was relocated to Schloss Kahlsperg in Oberalm in 2012/13.Haythem al Wazzan, a Salzburg citizen, now owns Emsburg Castle privately.