Sulzberg Castle

Sulzberg Castle, in the municipality of Untereggen, Switzerland, was established in the medieval period by local European builders.

A strong residential-defensive tower was erected around 1260, and the earliest named figure connected with the place is Rudolf I. von Sulzberg. The Sulzberg family acted as ministeriales, serving the Bishop of Konstanz from the mid-thirteenth century, and they managed lands and legal authority over nearby communities such as Goldach and Thal. The family’s direct male line ended when Rudolf V died on 2 November 1396. After that death, patronage rights passed through Elisabeth von Sulzberg to the Herren von Adlikon, while other Sulzberg possessions went by marriage to Eglof von Rorschach.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the site and its estates were repeatedly divided and transferred by sale and inheritance. Transactions involved several local figures, including Jost Meier of Altstätten, Hans Schub of Arbon, Lienhard Payer and Junker Hans Gnäpser, and members of the Mötteli family from Ravensburg. From about 1468 the Mötteli began to use the name Herren von Rappenstein; Jörg Mötteli purchased one half of the property in 1474 and secured the remaining half in 1490. Under their ownership the castle complex was substantially altered, with a new deep-cellared residential wing attached to the original tower and an additional residential block added to the north, creating an L-shaped, two-part arrangement.

The male line of the Rappenstein family ended in 1573, and ownership passed by inheritance and marriage through the Studer von Winkelbach and Rugg von Tannegg families, before being sold to Jakob Hädener in 1649 and to Johann Rudolf von Salis-Zizers in 1667. Johann Rudolf von Salis undertook attempts to renew the estate, but this work was not completed. By 1713 the main tower was shown as ruinous and the attached residence was largely uninhabitable. In 1784 the owners sought permission to demolish the site, but the prince-abbot ordered that the tower be preserved because outstanding feudal rights were tied to it; repairs were carried out and a mansard roof was added. The larger residential wing was partly renewed in a late-baroque manner, while the small northern residential block disappeared during these eighteenth-century changes.

In the nineteenth century the property changed hands again, being sold on 2 June 1857 to Johann Jakob Brunner. Around 1875 an additional upper storey and a walkway were placed on the main tower, apparently for short-term restaurant use, and the present topmost storey dates to after that time; the ground-level doorway was opened about 1877 while the original raised entrance on the second level remains. In the twentieth century ownership passed to the chemist Dr. Samuel Billwiller; his son carried out a restoration between 1946 and 1949. Dr. Martin Spirig bought the estate in 1951, reconstructed parts of the northern defensive wall and converted a long vaulted room on the north side into a chapel dedicated to St. Mauritius and the 14 Holy Helpers. The heirs sold the property in 1985 to the architect Andreas Eberle, who supervised roughly an 18-month renovation and conversion. Today the restored residential block and a new building on the west wall contain apartments, while the tower room and the chapel have remained unrented since 2006. The castle sits within a protected natural area of about 17 hectares that includes three ponds, one of which, the Schlossweiher, measures more than 400 metres in length.