Wackerbarth Castle

The estate was built between 1727 and 1730 on behalf of Field Marshal and Imperial Count August Christoph von Wackerbarth as a retirement residence. Johann Christoph Knöffel, the state architect, was responsible for the design, while Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and French gardens designed the octagonal belvedere and the garden areas. After Wackerbarth's death in 1734, his stepson, Count Joseph Anton Gabaleon von Wackerbarth-Salmour, inherited the castle. Later, it changed hands several times, including to the Dresden banker Christian Friedrich von Gregory. In the early 19th century, a great-grandnephew of the builder, Raugraf August Josef Ludwig von Wackerbarth, reacquired the estate. In the interim, it served as a boarding school for boys and later as a sanatorium for the mentally ill. In 1875, the castle was redesigned in the style of the Italian Renaissance. After further changes of ownership and renovations, including a re-Baroquization according to Knöffel's plans, the property passed to the Saxon State Bank in 1931 and to the Dresdner Bank in 1933.