Leonstein Castle

Leonstein Castle is a castle complex in the Upper Austrian village of Obergrünburg (municipality of Grünburg). Since 1945, it has housed a provincial children's home.

The castle dates back to a castle site with a farmyard built by Wilhelm von Rohr around 1397. Wilhelm's castle on the Hausberg – at the foot of which the castle lies – had been besieged and destroyed by Duke Albrecht III in 1390. The later owners from the Zelkinger family transformed the castle site and farmyard into the valley castle Feichta. Count Georg Siegmund von Salburg acquired the castle and the Leonstein dominion in 1629 from the Zelkinger estate. The Salburgs rebuilt Feichta in Baroque style in 1724 and named it "Neu-Leonstein".

At the end of 1919, the Upper Austrian provincial government bought the property from Count Theodor Salburg for 2,000,000 Kronen. Count Schmidegg, who had already leased the castle from the Salburgs, remained in the castle even after the change of ownership. From 1920, Leonstein Castle was a provincial estate and belonged to the provincial forest administration. The fermentation cellar of the Leonstein brewery was located in the house. In 1938, renovation work and alterations followed. Subsequently, it housed the female labor service of the RAD (Reich Labor Service); the Schmidegg couple had already passed away by this time. From 1944, the Wehrmacht used the building – among other things for training. After the end of the war, the property reverted to provincial ownership. Since November 1945, it has housed a provincial children's home. The building was last extensively renovated starting in 2003.