Ottersbach Castle

Archduke Ferdinand handed over "the Stockh" to Hans Murn on March 19, 1616. He named it Ottersbach and took on the same title himself. Murn entrusted the estate to Elias Hemeter, a relative, for administration, but Hemeter delivered the collected rents so irregularly that by 1620 a large debt had accumulated.

Hans Murn was succeeded as owner by his son Hans Jakob (1629), who was followed by his brother Hans Wilhelm (1633), who was murdered in 1650 by his ward Christof Andree von Gleinz. From the estate, Ottersbach was sold in 1653 to Hans Georg Adam Adl von Adlstein, who sold it on September 20, 1675, to Sigmund Ludwig Graf Khünburg; after his death, his widow administered the lordship for her son Johann Max, who took it over upon reaching adulthood and sold it in 1692 to Niklas Graf Lodron; after his death, following long inheritance disputes, his widow and then his son received the lordship.

In 1700, it came to foreclosure due to large outstanding tax sums, and in 1708, Count Josef Lodron was forced to sell Ottersbach to Johann Anton von Liscutin. After his death, such large debts lay on the estate that it had to be sold in 1732 to Franz Josef von Hingenau, who, however, soon also ran into payment difficulties and, pointing to the great devastation of the forests by the storms in December 1739, requested tax write-offs.

The property came to his son Franz Xaver Gottlieb in 1742. The lordship also included the village of Großklein, for which he received permission from the Empress to hold a second cattle market each year.

His son inherited the estate, now called "Alt-Ottersbach", and sold it to Moritz Edlen von Pistor. After the death of his son, it was publicly auctioned and acquired on September 3, 1836, by Kaspar Wilhelm Graf Khünburg. In 1870, it passed to his sister Caroline Gräfin Cerrini, then followed the families Koch, Hohenburger, and Germuth, from 1884-1893 Baron von Wucherer, and from 1893 the families Teutsch, von Plappart, and von Leenherr.

Since 1925, the Abel family has been the owner of Ottersbach Castle.