Built between 1615 and 1620 by the Tirolean knight Hieronymus von Stauber, a hotel since 1938, in the same Mair family for six generations, 39 rooms across the historic castle and the modern estate lodge, surrounded by meadows and orchards on a terrace above the River Inn.
"A four-hundred-year-old castle quietly run as a small hotel by the same Tirolean farming family since 1938, twenty minutes east of Innsbruck and a thousand metres above the noise of the Inntal motorway, the kind of place you can hear the Karwendel."
Schloss Mitterhart was commissioned in 1615 by the Tirolean knight Hieronymus von Stauber as a hunting and country seat above the village of Vomp, twenty minutes east of Innsbruck on the A12 Inntalautobahn between the Schwaz and Vomp exits. Construction completed in 1620 produced the four-square corner-towered Schloss that still defines the property today, late-Renaissance Tirolean style, with the painted facade, the deep-set windows and the cross-vaulted Stüben on the ground floor that subsequent generations preserved essentially intact. The castle passed through several ownerships over the next three centuries before the Mair family acquired it as a working farm in the late nineteenth century. The hotel and restaurant operation began in 1938 under Andreas Mair and has been continuous since, the present management is the sixth generation of the same farming family, running the Schloss as both a small castle hotel and a still-operational orchard estate.
The 39 rooms divide between two buildings. Twenty rooms occupy the upper floors of the historic Schloss itself: heavily timbered ceilings, hand-painted Tirolean Bauernschrank wardrobes, original window seats cut into the metre-thick stone walls, modernised bathrooms with walk-in rain showers and underfloor heating. The corner suites in the four-tower configuration are the headline units, each with two double-window aspects (typically one onto the Karwendel range to the north and one onto the orchards to the south). The remaining nineteen rooms are in the Estate Lodge, a contemporary timber-and-glass building completed in 2019 fifty metres downhill from the castle, designed to look architecturally subordinate to the historic Schloss. Lodge rooms are larger, with floor-to-ceiling glazing facing the Inn valley.
The restaurant, set in two of the original cross-vaulted Stüben on the castle's ground floor, runs authentic Tirolean cooking from a working short menu that changes with the seasons. The Saturday-evening service is the property's working week and the regional dining draw: Wiener Schnitzel cut from veal-of-the-hour from the family's own orchard fields, Kasspatzln made with cellar-aged grey-cheese, venison from the Karwendel in autumn, and the Mair family's own pressed apple juice and schnapps from the estate's fruit programme. In summer the courtyard and the rose garden, the Rosengarten, open for lunch and afternoon service, and either room can be privately booked for weddings or family events up to 50 guests.
What the Schloss sells is the deliberate counter-position to a city hotel, twenty minutes from Innsbruck by car or train, but on a quiet terrace above a working orchard with the silence and the air of the rural Tirol. The Inntalradweg cycle path runs past the entrance; the Stans station for the Achensee narrow-gauge railway is six minutes by car; the Karwendel hiking entry at the Hinterriß is forty-five minutes; the Stubai and the Axamer Lizum ski areas are forty to fifty minutes. The Schloss is not a destination wellness or spa hotel, there is a small sauna and a quiet reading room, but for the rural-Tirolean stay, the small wedding, the anniversary weekend, or the solo writing retreat, it is one of the most considered hideaways within an hour of Innsbruck.
A milestone anniversary at the Schloss can be calibrated: a Castle Corner Suite for a quiet weekend, the Rosengarten for the dinner, the family-pressed schnapps on the courtyard at dusk. The hotel handles small private dinners and milestone meals reflexively; the staff-to-guest ratio is high; the position is rural enough that nothing distracts from the occasion.
For an Alpine honeymoon that doesn't want a five-star hotel's pace, slow mornings on a four-hundred-year-old castle, afternoons on the Achensee or the Karwendel hiking trails, dinner in a cross-vaulted Stube, the Mitterhart is the Tirol's quietest answer. Book a Castle Corner Suite with the north-and-south aspect.
For the solo Alpine retreat, a writing week, a reading week, a slow recovery from something, the Schloss is one of the rare four-stars that treats a solo guest as the default. A single Castle Standard room, breakfast on the courtyard, Inntalradweg cycling, the Karwendel hikes from Hinterriß. Twenty minutes to Innsbruck if you want it; entire days without leaving the orchard if you don't.
Mitterhart 1
6134 Vomp
Tirol, Austria
A12 Inntalautobahn exits Schwaz or Vomp (5 min); Innsbruck 22 min by car; Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof 18 min by train to Schwaz then 8 min by taxi; Innsbruck Airport 28 min
39 rooms (20 in castle, 19 in lodge)
Castle Standard Doubles from €210/night
Estate Lodge Rooms from €240/night
Castle Corner Suites from €380/night
Half-board options available
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 11:00 AM
Castle built 1615, 1620 by Hieronymus von Stauber; hotel since 1938; Mair family ownership, sixth generation
Authentic Tirolean restaurant in original Stüben
Rosengarten courtyard dining (summer)
Sauna & reading room
Free WiFi throughout
Estate orchard & pressing room
Event capacity up to 50 (salons / Rosengarten)
On the Inntalradweg cycle route
From €210/night. The Castle Corner Suites book three to four months ahead for May, June and September, October; weddings book the entire property eight to twelve months out.
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