Austria Part 1: The Dehnepark and its abandoned Villa

Over the past year, I have been in Vienna, Austria quite often because of my Profiler training. As my brother is also living here, I know most of the famous places already. That is why today I wanted to explore a new part of the City: The Dehnepark

The Dehnepark is a nature park-like park in the 14th district of Vienna, Penzing, with an area of ​​around 50,000 m². The park is part of the Vienna Woods and is considered unique due to its population of old trees and its habitat. It is located in the Rosental on the east slope of Hütteldorf's local mountain, the Satzberg, and on the opposite side on the slopes of the Steinhofgrund.

So I started walking from the apartment I was renting to the entrance of the park, which was like a 30min walk straight up through the city. At one point I had already a great view over the city, which was nice.

Entering the park I saw a path, like an old street, going up to a house - well it seemed like it. A sign said: abandoned villa. It instantly caught my interest and I decided to check it out.

Abandoned houses or factories in the Austrian capital are usually demolished or secured to such an extent that the places have disappeared or been cordoned off. But here in the middle of a park landscape, I found one of the few lost places in Vienna among branches, twigs, and moss: the abandoned villa at the Dehnepark.

I was really excited about this and decided to walk around it to check out if I could enter at some point.

The walls were crumbling, the roof was a single gaping hole. Graffiti was all over the walls, moss and other plants were growing in the cracks in the wall, and in front of it there was a sign "Entering the construction site prohibited".

On one side I found 3 additional signs telling the story of the park and the abandoned villa.

It says that the history of the dilapidated villa has not been fully explored to this day. Documents on this are missing. The building was said to have always been built as a villa in ruins. Why is not clear. What is documented: the ruined villa was first the country seat of Princess Antonie von Paar, née Liechtenstein. She bought the artificial ruins in 1871. At that time, parts of the surrounding Dehnepark also belonged to her.

Later, Willi Forst, a famous actor, and director bought the property. Among other things, he became known for the film "Wiener Blut". He seemed comfortable in the villa in ruins and rebuilt everything. At least until 1969. At that time he sold everything to the City of Vienna, which since then was the owner of the property and only decided four years later what would become of it. In 1973 the park was opened to the public - the ruined villa, however, remained what it always was: a ruin.

Today the villa is fenced and not accessible. The ruins can be viewed from all angles from the outside.

There was a hole in the fence on one side though...so I ventured a look inside.

Crossing the entrance I was located at what looked like an entrance hall.

Behind that, the main building started. It was a big room with many Graffitis and a few columns that should probably hold the construction. It didn't look very safe though. On the roof, I could see that some of the wood was missing already and the stone walls were cracked on some parts.

After a while, I decided to go back and check out the rest of the outside before I left the ruin completely.

From there I decided to check out the rest of the park as initially planned. Even though I wasn't very far from the city, it felt like being somewhere close to the forest, as I was walking mostly hiking trails.

The Dehnepark was originally built as a landscape garden for Princess Maria Antoine Paar. It was designed by Friedrich Mayern between 1791 and 1804 in the style of an English landscape garden. The park was given a Biedermeier, romantic character through various structures such as temples, pavilions, grottos, and buildings. However, these elements of the garden design largely disappeared again in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the exception of the neo-Gothic abandoned villa.

The park got its name from the confectioner August Dehne. In the 19th century, his pastry shop did very well, so he invested his income in the large property. Decades later, the Viennese film director Willi Forst, as previously mentioned, bought this site.

Finally, after the Second World War, the Municipality of Vienna showed interest in the slowly overgrown park, bought it from Forst in 1969,and opened it to the public in 1973. Since then, the Dehnepark has been managed and looked after by the Forestry Office of the City of Vienna.

The valley is crossed by the Rosenbach. The center of the Dehnepark is formed by the artificially dammed Dehne pond and the large meadow below.

For me and I guess also for a lot of people in the city, it was the perfect escape diving right into nature. And on my way back home I even got another inspiration for hiking trails not that far away:

So probably you gonna see more of that hidden places soon ;)

Until then - have a nice rest of the week!
Cheers,
Liz