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Historic: The roots of Ansitz Steinbock are estimated to date back to the 12^th century.

Why did Villandro need this kind of official building?

Two noble families, the Von Wolkensteins and the Neuhauses, owned a silver ore mine here. This was the building where silver ore was traded and the peons were paid. The significance of the house can still be seen here at the former court parlour, one of the largest of its kind still preserved throughout Tyrol. The 14 large windows¾dreaded thermal bridges at the time¾show how wealthy the authority was.

What went on at the court parlour?

The High Court of the lower Valle Isarco used to sit here until way into the 17^th century, settling disputes from Bressanone to Prato all’Isarco¾some of them matters of life and death. Our wine cellar used to be the dungeon at the time: six metres underground, the access hardly hip-wide. The convicts had to hold out there until they were brought to Barbiano where their sentence was to be executed. The former court parlour was repanelled in the middle of the 17^th century. The lower parlour, called the ‘Defregger-Stube’ today, dates back to the 15^th century.

How did this parlour get its name? 

It didn’t have it from the beginning. The famous history painter Franz von Defregger was a frequent guest here in the 19^th century. The historical Dorfgasse inspired him to create his well-known piece ‘The Last Contingent’ that hangs in Munich now. He found the last contingent should have taken place here rather than in Val Passiria. (Laughs.) This is how the Dorfgasse became the Defregger-Gasse and the parlour the Defregger-Stube. 

And what’s the story behind the ibex in ‘Ansitz Steinbock’? 

From 1750, the ‘Ansitz’ was turned into a village guesthouse with a farm attached. The owner at the time was a passionate ibex hunter. He would return from his hunting trips and throw big feasts he would call ‘Stainbock Wirtstafern’. That is when the former administrative seat got its current name.

Since when have you run the place? 

My parents bought the house in the year 2000, then followed eighteen months of gutting and redevelopment. I took over at the age of 19, thinking: ‘Oh well, anybody can do hotel!’ (Laughs.) In fact, while I had attended a school of hotel management, my parents were in construction. Had I known how hard it would turn out to be, I would have never dared to do this alone. You don’t know anything at 19, no matter how well trained you are. It was tough, but I’m glad I did it.

Sometimes, a bit of naiveté is just what you need.

That’s right. Back then, this was a run-of-the-mill guesthouse where people would drink beer and play cards in the evenings. That was not the kind of outfit I wanted to run. So, I turned everything upside down from one season to the next, hired a young, up-and-coming chef named Hannes Pignater and focused on high-end cooking: We lost the pork roast and ventured into gourmet cuisine.

What happened then?

I wanted to raise the rooms to the level of the restaurant and thought, to do that, I’d need a big spa hotel. So, I planned a palace on a free area behind the house, with all the shenanigans you can think of. But the closer the time to decide came, the more I thought: That’s not at all what I want. At the last moment, I came to my senses and hit the brakes.

That’s quite brave.

It was then that architect Andreas Lengfeld and I started from scratch. We didn’t have a real idea of what was going to come of it; all we knew was it had to be about this historical building, its substance and history.

So, you reimagined the whole building from the ground up.

Exactly. Our key thought was that whoever set foot in this more than 500-year-old parlour went: ‘Wow, all the things that happened here!’ But the higher they ascended within the house, the worse the quality became. Small rooms, badly soundproofed, 1980s interior. We wanted to turn the whole house into something special¾top to bottom, inside out. That meant that all historical walls were allowed to stay, the rest we took out, thus creating a completely new layout of rooms. We have twelve suites today, each of which is unique.

Unique and bearing worthy names.

We hired art historian Sepp Kusstatscher to research anecdotes from the building’s history for us. Based on what he found, one suite is called Von Wolkenstein, for example, after the noble family that was important for the house. This is about more than just some quick history. We want to make elements of our past visible. Every suite has part of the building’s history on display. Many guests find that interesting; they look things up and continue researching.

This idea is also reflected in the materials used.

I bought more than 800 square metres of old wood flooring and had it processed. Some craftsmen told me that wasn’t necessary for a hotel. But an old building like this is no place for waxed or oiled oak only because that’s easy to clean; it needs an old, untreated wood floor! And when someone steps on it barefoot, it’s okay if they catch the odd splinter. Also, I refused to have tiles that only look like stone; I wanted real stone from the area. In the end, we found a tiny quarry in Siusi allo Sciliar that had some beautiful basalt. It is fairly young, which you can see from the gas bubbles, and it has all the colours from green to brown. Many people don’t believe that such a stone exists in South Tyrol. And another example: The electrician proposed a key-card system to access the rooms. But I insisted that when a guest unlocks a door in these historical walls, it should be with an actual key.