Wolfsberg Castle with Parquin House and Chapel

En un regard

Le château en bref

Wolfsberg Castle stands on a terrace of the Seerücken, above Ermatingen and the Untersee, the lower arm of Lake Constance, in the canton of Thurgau. Younger and more modest than many lakeside castles, it nonetheless has a dense history. According to the dendrochronological analysis of the cellar beams, the Junker Wolf Walter von Gryffenberg had his residence built here in 1576 and gave it his name. Having become a Freisitz (a tax-exempt estate), the castle passed in particular to the Gelderich of Sigmarshofen family, then in 1731 to the Zollikofer of Altenklingen, who remodelled it in the Baroque style. The banker Jean Jacques Högger had a “new château” built around 1797–1800, today known as Parquin House. From 1824 to 1839, the Napoleonic colonel Charles Parquin, a close associate of Queen Hortense of Arenenberg, ran the first guesthouse in the canton of Thurgau and had a Catholic chapel built around 1830. After serving as a model farm and then as a convalescent hotel, the estate was acquired in 1970 by the Société de Banque Suisse, later UBS, which opened a training and conference centre there. The historic castle now houses suites, while the estate, a cultural property of regional importance (KGS 4991), accommodates a hotel and a conference centre.