A house with history: from the Weiss wine tavern to Villa FLINT
The Villa FLINT was once the well-known “Hotel Weiss” – and is now as **** Hotel FLINT again a house of tradition-conscious hospitality.
Once upon a time ...
… many memorable stories begin with these three words.
And so it happened in 1867 that a certain Josef Weiss left Bolzano to marry Maria Herburger, the daughter of Karl Heinrich Herburger – who was a well-known innkeeper in Dornbirn – and henceforth to try his luck in Dornbirn.
Best location
Josef Weiss, who ran a wine trade, initially built a large residential house for his family of nine directly opposite the Dornbirn train station on a narrow piece of building land in the following years. He opened a wine bar and café in the first floor rooms as early as 1887. He then built a winery building with separate stables next to it in the eastern part of his land.
In 1892, he expanded the business – especially by including some rooms on the upper floor – into a hotel business: The Hotel Weiss had been created. He continued to operate the wine wholesale business on an ongoing basis.
Leading hotel with noble guests
The Hotel Weiss on Bahnhofplatz developed into the leading hotel in the community of Dornbirn, which was not yet a town at that time. It was consistently well attended and had some special features due to its location directly across from the train station. Thus, it obtained the right to sell railroad tickets. From the close connection with the railroad, however, another use arose. If a train had already arrived and a guest had not yet finished his “Viertele”, he was advised to drink it in peace and quiet, and a phone call was made to the station to say that “the train should wait, there was another guest coming”.
At the trade exhibition in Dornbirn in 1900, the Hotel Weiss received special recognition: Archduke Eugene, who had visited the exhibition and, as befitted such a distinguished guest, had purchased room furnishings, spent the night in the bay window room.
Destination
The hotel had its own carriage and recommended trips to the “Gütle” or to the Bregenzerwald as well as to Bregenz and Lindau.
In 1907, the experienced hotelier Weiss died. His son, together with his siblings, continued to run the hotel business and wine trade until the end of 1914. The world was in upheaval – Josef Weiss Junior had to enlist and leased the company until 1917.
In 1919 the parterre rooms were rented to the Vienna Bank Association and years later to the Federation of Industrialists. One of the first hotels in Dornbirn had met its end.
A new chapter in history
A century later, this place is now to house people again. In partnership with the newly built Hotel FLINT, the former Hotel Weiss, under the name Villa FLINT, will also be resurrected. All of us, the entrepreneurial Feurstein family, the architect duo marte&marte, the outfitters, the employees and the guests and visitors from near and far, can be part of a fairytale success story and now help to shape the transformation of a legendary house.
Picture gallery - The new "Villa Flint
Take a look at the newly designed Villa FLINT – the historical part of the new Hotel FLINT **** in Dornbirn – a house of refined hospitality.
