Simon von Wimpffen

Simon Alfons Franz Reichsgraf von Wimpffen (around 1910)

Fahrafeld Castle (around 1900)

Simon Alfons Franz Graf von Wimpffen (born August 21, 1867 in Vöslau in Austria, † April 11, 1925 in Vienna ) was the founder of the spa in Neuhaus near Weissenbach an der Triesting in Lower Austria.

Live and act

He was the son of Count Viktor von Wimpffen (* July 24, 1834 - † May 22, 1897) (and thus grandson of Franz Emil Lorenz Graf Wimpffen ) and the Countess Anastasia von Wimpffen, born baroness of Sina zu Hodos and Kizdia, granddaughter of Georg Freiherr von Sina , owner of the Neuhaus , Fahrafeld and Arnstein estates since 1833 . On May 30, 1890 he married Countess Karoline Széchenyi , daughter of Count Gyula Széchenyi and Countess Karoline von Zichy-Ferraris. The marriage was childless and was later separated; the count remained single throughout his life.

To 1889 founded Wimpffen an elegant Kurbetrieb in today Weissenbach an der Triesting belonging Neuhaus , where he built three large hotels and thirty luxurious villas and yet in 1913 a skating hall. With the beginning of the First World War, the company failed.

Wimpffen had huge estates in Hungary and therefore the financial means to push the Neuhaus project. His ancestors were of Hungarian descent; The main castle in Austria was Kainberg Castle near Graz. The count lived at Fahrafeld Castle during the construction period , but was often to be found in Neuhaus, where he later lived temporarily in the manor house.

Wimpffen planned to appoint his nephew Simon as heir, but he fell on the Italian front in 1918. At the end of the First World War , Hungary became independent and the count lost all of the great Hungarian possessions. The goods complex Neuhaus, Fahrafeld and Arnstein is taken over by his nephew Georg Graf Wimpffen (1896–1968), a son of his brother Siegfried Graf von Wimpffen (1865–1929).

Simon Graf Wimpffen left his place of work around 1920 and from then on lived partly in the Palais Sina in Vienna, partly in his villa in Mauer near Vienna, where he, long-suffering from diabetes, died on April 11, 1925. - He is buried in the Hietzinger Friedhof , Vienna, where the mausoleum bears the following inscription:

“Here rests in peace / Simon / Reichsgraf / von Wimpffen / born. on August 21, 1867 / died on April 11, 1925 / Obltn. d. K. u. K. Hussar Regiment, / erbl. Member of the Hungarian Magnate House, Knight of the Grand Cross / of the Order of Franz Josef. "

Contributions to the expansion of Neuhaus and the surrounding area

From 1893, Simon von Wimpffen pushed for the expansion of the spa facilities, starting with the installation of water pipes including the three collecting tanks in Kienberg , one kilometer east of the center of Neuhaus. For the construction of the three-storey Josef-Leitner-Warte on the Peilstein by the Lower Austrian Mountain Association , Baden section, in 1895 the count provided all the timber free of charge. Between 1895 and 1896 the pond and the spa were created. Also in 1895, construction work began on the Hotel Stephanie , which opened on June 1, 1897. The 26 old villas were built during the same period .

The manor was bought in 1896 and expanded into a mansion in the same year . In the same year, the horse stable of the Gasthaus Lechner was bought and demolished to make room for the construction of a post office and a hairdressing room. The following year the inn was moved to the ground floor of the manor house. In addition, von Wimpffen had three parks, two music pavilions and fountains laid out, while his wife appeared as the donor of the tower clock in 1891 and the wooden cemetery cross in 1896.

The hydroelectric power station in Fahrafeld was also built in 1896, which generated electricity for the Fahrafeld Castle and, from 1897, also for the manor house . In 1900, the elevated water tank on Karnerfeld with the pump house was built in the valley and the old villas received electricity. There was a separate carpentry shop to supply the health spa. Around 1900, the count's meat bank in the forester's house , the large slaughterhouse in Fahrafeld and later also their own laundry were built. The own ice pond was abandoned after a short existence and the supply of ice was from now on from the large pond.

In 1910, the count took over the inn on his own with tenants and from then on called the manor Hotel Neuhaus . The old Gasthaus Lechner and several farmhouses were purchased and demolished. By 1912, the Tiergarten in Gadenweith , Weissenbach an der Triesting, Haselbach and Wolfgeist (both in the Pottenstein municipality ), a new hairdressing room in house no. 88 and the 11 new villas with electricity . 20 air huts were built behind the old villas . Of these small wooden houses, which were used as accommodation for weekend guests, only one survived the Second World War.

The sanatorium and the Curhotel d'Orange were built from 1911 to 1913 . A bowling alley was laid out behind the Hotel Neuhaus .

The renovated Curhotel d'Orange in Neuhaus in 2005

In 1913 the station hotel was built at the crossing with Fahrafeld, 300 meters east of the Weißenach-Neuhaus station. A horse stable and 10 garages were built between Nöstacher Strasse and Schwarzenseer Strasse, and behind the Fahrafeld Castle an own stud with a racing track. From 1914, guests had access to a roller-skating hall, two tennis courts, a covered corridor between the Hotel Stephanie and the sanatorium and the coffee house with a corridor to the Curhotel d'Orange . The post office was demolished and moved to Villa Weinberg . In 1916 a toboggan run was set up that led from Peilstein to Neuhaus. The wooden glass salon built in 1913 burned down in 1917, but was immediately rebuilt. In the years 1920 to 1921, the Neuhaus residents were finally supplied with electricity. In 1921 the community installed the electric street lighting, which was fed with electricity from the count's electricity works in Fahrafeld.

literature

• Bernhard Mader: Neuhaus - excerpt from the chronicle of the castle and place . In: Festschrift for the market survey of the community Weißenbach an der Triesting 1981 . Weissenbach an der Triesting 1981, pp. 26–31.
• Bernhard Mader: Neuhaus district in the Vienna Woods . In: Alfons Brammertz: Heimatbuch der Marktgemeinde Weissenbach an der Triesting - from then until today . Marktgemeinde Weissenbach, Weissenbach 1986, pp. 198 f., OBV .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Constantin von Wurzbach: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaisertums Österreich , 56th part, Vienna 1888, p. 260 f.
2. ↑ Little Chronicle. (...) † Count Victor Wimpffen. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt (No. 11764/1897), May 24, 1897, p. 1, bottom left. (Online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ Entry about Schloss Kainberg on Burgen-Austria , accessed on June 3, 2010
4. ↑ Brammertz: Heimatbuch , p. 201

Remarks

1. ↑ The building burned (according to local firefighters Chronicle) from 26 to 27 April 1945 completely off. In place of the commercial wing adjoining the main building on the left (not visible in the picture), two individual buildings were erected, which are now inhabited or managed by descendants (Schloßfeldstrasse 2). The bridge crossing Triesting in front of the main portal of the castle no longer exists either. - At the
   top right of the picture you can see the chimney and the building of the Mitterer mill located in Weissenbach an der Triesting at the entrance to the Neuhauser Valley , 1907 to 1925: Firmit-Werke Aktiengesellschaft , 1928 to 1960: Eternit-Werke Ludwig Hatschek AG .
2. ↑ * 1838; † February 23, 1889 in Vienna. - See: Little Chronicle. (...) † Countess Anastasia Wimpffen. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt (No. 8803/1889), February 25, 1889, p. 1, bottom left. (Online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ In September 1892 he or his brother Siegfried and Count Hans Wilczek jun. the first owners of a "horseless vehicle" that rumbled through the streets of Vienna for the first time.
   The two had bought a French Serpollet steam car . The 1,800 kilogram colossus was to be fired with coke (the counts were " chauffeurs " in the original meaning of the word, ie stokers) and had iron-shod wheels that made a lot of noise on the cobblestones.
4. ↑ Location of the building, which today only exists in traces
5. ↑ After the death of his uncle, he took over his uncle's goods, but was "economically unsuccessful" . - Mader: Festschrift , p. 30. In
   1937 an application for bankruptcy was rejected for lack of assets. At that time, Wimpffen had already tried to sell, among other things, Gut Neuhaus (which was not included in the Fideikommiss ) in order to improve his financial situation, but this did not succeed. - See: Count Georg Wimpffen without assets. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt (No. 26000 M / 1937), January 28, 1937, p. 6, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). .

Web links

• Website about the Wimpffen family