Royal Villa

The Royal Villa (also: Max Villa) in Berchtesgaden was built on behalf of the Bavarian King Maximilian II according to plans by the architect Ludwig Lange and completed in 1853. It is a listed building and is located west of the market center on Kälbersteinstraße above the Luitpoldpark, which opened in 1893.

Maximilian II, like his ancestors and descendants, had spent many summers in the Royal Palace. In the Royal Villa he had built, his two sons Otto and the later fairy tale king Ludwig II had spent their summer holidays "again and again between 1853 and 1863" as children. However, since the end of the 19th century, an incident in the park of the Royal Villa has also been rumored, which caused Ludwig II to develop a strong aversion to Berchtesgaden as early as 1857 and kept him from further visits to the villa for a long time after his father's death (1864).

Last used by Prince Regent Ludwig until 1918, the Royal Villa was managed by the Wittelsbach Compensation Fund from 1922 and sold to a private individual in 1975. As early as the beginning of the 1920s, part of the building was converted into apartments; everything else was successively used before the Second World War as a "higher educational institution", exhibition space for the local artists' association, "Café Bubestinger" and "Kur-Café Königliche Villa", the latter combined with a first renovation.

After the war, the villa served as a youth center, café and wholesale market. Around the mid-1980s, it was finally divided into about 30 condominiums. Since then, only the large main staircase, paintings in the stairwell and some largely original rooms or parts thereof remain in their original condition.