Hermesvilla, Villa and museum in Hietzing, Austria
The Hermesvilla is a baroque revival villa located within the Lainzer Tiergarten, a large nature reserve on Vienna's southern edge. The building features multiple rooms and is now open as a museum where visitors can see the interior spaces and historical displays.
Emperor Franz Joseph decided in summer 1881 to build a retreat for Empress Elisabeth, first planned as "Villa Waldruh". Architect Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer designed it, and construction ran from 1882 to 1886, including stables and a riding school. In 1885 it was renamed Villa Hermés after Ernst Herter's garden statue of Hermes. The imperial couple stayed here each late spring from 1887 until Elisabeth's assassination in 1898.
The house functions as a museum displaying how the Empress spent her leisure time, with rooms reflecting her personal taste and love of physical activity. The exhibitions reveal her connection to this retreat and how she used it to escape her formal duties.
The grounds are accessible through several entrances, with the gate on Hermesstrasse being quickest to reach from central Vienna. It is advisable to wear comfortable shoes, as the path to the villa leads through the nature reserve.
The white marble statue Hermes der Wächter (Hermes the Guardian) in the garden was commissioned by Elisabeth herself from the Berlin sculptor Ernst Herter, and the villa was renamed Villa Hermés after it in 1885. The stables in the left wing of the courtyard kept their original box partitions and tie stalls, and between them lies a circular Rondeau, 20 metres across, where the Empress's horses were lunged in bad weather.
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