The Rojachof and its history

As early as 1042, the "Rajachhof" was mentioned as a tithe-duty to the Freising Basilica of St. Peter near Freßnitz, and when the Peace of Lieserhofen was concluded in the Christmas days of 1252, the "Rajachhof" was also mentioned as a pledge to Philip, the chosen one of Salzburg.
When Count Ulrich von Celje had taken over this Upper Carinthian lordship on the basis of an inheritance contract after the extinction of the Counts of Ortenburg in 1420, the new landlord granted his faithful Conrad Haspel the "Masyerhoff zu Rayach as a hereditary fief" in May 1441 for services rendered. However, Haspel died without heirs, so that the "Rojachhof" soon returned to the county according to the right of reversion.

In 1509, a document reports that the "honourable and princely Heinrich Auer" appears as a house on the "Rojachhof", who got into a dispute with the farmers of Zelsach – above the Hühnersberg – over an alpine pasture; it was about the limits, the grazing times and the number of cattle to be raised.

After hearing some expert assessors, the responsible district judge decided that the alpine pasture came from the Counts of Ortenburg and therefore "without everything goes to the Mayer zu Royachhof", who could find up to 150 head of alpine cattle. Since 1524, the Counts of Salamanca have been the lords of the County of Ortenburg. That is why, in 1528, Count Gabriel Salamanca handed over his "Hof Raiach with all stuckh and goods to his dear Augustin Reinwald as a fief", - Now the Reinwalds remained the lords of the "Rojachhof" for many years.

Around 1650, the Knights of Leobenengg acquired the "Rojachhof" and its neighbouring estates, the Reinwaldhof, Bodenhof and Steinwaldhof. About 100 years earlier, the Lords of Leobenegg had already given up their old stronghold in the Lieser Valley and moved into a large house at the foot of the castle hill. Now Johann Christoph von Leobenegg married Maria Katharina von Reinwald, which brought the "Rojachhof" into the possession of the Leobeneggers. They expanded the estate at Lurnfeld into a beautiful aristocratic residence and called it "Neu-Leobenegg". The "Rojachhof" remained the seat of the Lords of Leobenegg for 260 years. They were judges and nurses in Gmünd in Salzburg, accountants and judges in Klagenfurt and later also acted as lawyers and court judges of the Jesuit order in Millstatt, until the monastery property there was secularized by the state in 1773. _ As late as 1836, a gravestone in the vestibule of St. Peter's Church in Holz mentions a Joseph Ritter Leobenegg as the owner of all the aristocratic estates.

The later owners of the "Rojachhof" are the reg. physician Dr. Taurer, Mr. Kapeller and, from 1915 to 1928, Anton Stotter. Since 1928, the Swiss family Traugott Rindlisbacher from Landiswil in the canton of Bern has been sitting at the "Rojachhof". The fact that the people of Rindlisbach found a new home on the Lurnfeld is due to a happy coincidence. Mr. Traugott Rindlisbacher, whose ancestors have been on the same farm in Switzerland for 700 years, actually did not want to become a farmer. Although he had learned the profession of a shoemaker, he had enlisted in the "Mission Suisse romande" to help lepers in the South Seas. For this reason, in 1915 the young man from Rindlisbach had to introduce himself to the Countess Albine de La Tour, who had founded the orphanages in Treffen near Villach, in the deaconess house "Salem" in Bern. When Rindlisbacher wanted to leave in 1920 with three more men, the British refused to grant him a visa. For this reason, he received an offer from the Countess de La Tour to take up Protestant youth work in the diaspora (= religious minorities) in Carinthia. – Traugott Rindlisbacher came to Carinthia in 1921 and began to fulfil the task assigned to him in the Liesertal, in the Drautal, in Stockenboi and in the Gegental with great zeal. He spoke at numerous evening meetings and in 1925 founded the trombone choir in Seeboden, which still exists, which he brought to a strength of 30 wind players.

While looking for a farm for his brother-in-law, Rindlisbacher found the "Rojachhof", which the Bank für Kärnten had put up for auction in 1927. Because his brother-in-law had in the meantime acquired a property near Zurich himself, Traugott and Lina Rindlisbacher bought the "Rojachhof" themselves at auction in 1928; the relatives gave them a helping hand. The pastures and forests of the manor had been sold off by the previous owner, and the remaining 7 hectares of forest, almost completely cut down, were not even enough to supply firewood for domestic use. With a lot of diligence and perseverance, however, the Rindlisbacher family has built up the dairy farm with slurry operation here according to the Swiss model. 32 to 38 dairy cows and 30 to 40 young cattle were kept; great importance was also attached to pig breeding with about 10 suckler pigs and fattening. With 8 to 10 horses, the field work was done in the summer and the timber and stone transports in the winter. The cultivation of a lot of cereals and silage maize, the planting of fruit trees and the drainage of 18 hectares of moor and wet areas were further pioneering deeds of the Rindlisbacher family. In the years that followed, the "Rojachhof" became a sought-after destination for excursions by agricultural schools, and the Chamber of Agriculture recognized it as a training company for agricultural and home economics apprentices.

From 1930 onwards, Mr. Rindlisbacher succeeded in accommodating two youth camps with 80 to 120 boys and girls aged 14 to 18 every summer by the Christian Association of Young People, a Protestant youth organization in Germany, for four weeks of summer vacation each. From 1933 onwards, this was no longer possible due to the Hitler regime's 1000-mark ban.

In 1954 the castle was renovated and converted into a guesthouse-restaurant. In the main and annex building there were now 24 spacious rooms with cold and hot running water, shared showers and shared bathroom. In 1971, a large annex was added to the castle, in which there are 20 apartments, 10 of which have a balcony. Two large dining rooms, a farmhouse parlour, an extra room and a living room with an open fireplace, all with a dignified, rustic touch, offer the many guests comfortable comfort.

The "Rojachhof" was run by Frieda and Traugott Rindlisbacher until 1984 and taken over by Elfriede and Traugott Rindlisbacher in 1985. Since then, the business has been open all year round for private guests and leisure activities and has been run exclusively as a guesthouse since 1992.

At the end of the eighties, we recognized the need to retrofit the rooms in the castle part and outbuildings with wet rooms, showers and toilets. The inner courtyard, where the large lime tree stands, was given a beautiful stone pavement and the outer façade was brought back to its dignified old character according to old paintings.
The house bell, which had been on the roof since 1841, was replaced by a new bell and now rings twice a day by means of an electric bell.

The leisure activities "game room" – table tennis – land hockey – dart game – darts game – will put you in a good mood even in bad weather. The many bicycles are also popular, children's express and go-kart are also part of the large leisure programme.
There is now a separate accommodation for the youth, the "Hühnernest", and it is a hit at the Rojachhof.
Nothing is left to be desired, because for Bible evenings, seminars, children's work, choir work and theatre or colourful evenings there is the dining room, the extra room and parlour, the "chicken coop", the threshing floor and the park, where each of our guests can get their money's worth.

The many guests do not miss the three witnesses of an interesting past: a Roman stone with elegant sculpture at the southwest corner of the castle, a large Roman urn in the courtyard from which flowers are now sprouting, and a fresco on the east wall of the castle depicting a smoking sultan with a letter in Turkish mirror writing.