Preface

A former baronial castle in

South Tyrol offers an
arresting getaway for both
serving and retired officers
in the Italian police force.

Polizia di Stato
Merano, Italy
When Baron Georg Freiherr von Ompteda, Dresden-born
aristocrat and noted writer, commissioned a country residence
in 1910, he imagined a castle for his personal use specifically,
a 16th-century Renaissance-style castle in the South Tyrolean
vernacular. On the grounds of an old farmhouse in Merano, a
town now part of an autonomous region of Italy, the Castello
Stifterhof was built, a giant stonework manor with a medley
of turrets and arched lattice windows. For Bohemian architect
Adalbert Erlebach, who designed much of early 20th-century
Merano, the castle would stand as his most significant work.
Merano was by this point a well-established destination for
the rich and noble. The pearl of Alto Adige (the Italian name
for the region) was renowned for its curative spas where Rainer
Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka and other notables sought to recover
their health in the towns temperate climate. Annexed to Italy
after the First World War, more than half of Meranos residents
still speak German as their mother tongue.
Its Habsburg-era grandeur intact, the town attracts visitors
to its thermal baths, ski slopes, art nouveau villas and tree-lined
boulevards. The Castello Stifterhof endures; for the most part
physically unchanged but no longer an aristocratic dominion.
The castle is now the holiday getaway for Italys police force.
After falling into disrepair the Stifterhof was sold to Italys
police-assistance fund in 1967, restored and reopened as a
holiday home first for police officials, then, in the 1990s, for
all police officers. In the 1960s there was the economic boom,
there was money, there was this new idea about workers taking
vacations and about having places dedicated to vacation,
says the director of the Castello Stifterhof, Cinzia Cellucci, a
bouncy woman with a blonde ponytail who was among the first
women to graduate from the police academy in 1986. Whats
interesting is that they picked a castle as the vacation place.
The Italian police have three vacation retreats dotted
around the country but the Stifterhof is the only castle. It
welcomes up to 52 guests; police, both off-duty and retired,
come with their families from all over Italy and occasionally
from abroad. Antonino Ungaro, a Venice policeman who had
a 40-year career, says over lunch with his wife: We have time
to travel now, to come to places like this. I feel right at home
here. The couple sit in the dining room, lit by wooden chandeliers, a bronze candelabra on every table and behind them an
18th-century fireplace brought over from a Tuscan villa.
We take care of our guests, says Giuseppina La Monica,
a gentle Sicilian woman who prepares lunch and dinner for
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the castles visitors. We have elderly people coming, children,

people who need a little extra care, so we give them homecooking, the good stuff, joy from the kitchen.
After meals, guests gather in the grand parlour room. To
one side, a fleur-de-lis-frescoed arcade with pink marble columns leads to a bar covered in dark wood and jacquard panels.
This is where aperitivos and grappas are served. At the centre
of the room, visitors can trade anecdotes on large brocade
couches that face a king-sized fireplace.
Book lovers and card players, meanwhile, take to the reading room to gather at walnut tables with velvet chairs, the walls
lined with dark-wood wainscoting and pilasters. The rooms
most impressive feature is its wood-burning Austrian furnace
dating back to 1618, a floor-to-ceiling behemoth covered in
colourfully glazed majolica tiles.
The retreat opens in November for the winter season and
stays open throughout February, welcoming skiers. In summer,
the castle opens from Easter until September.
The castles gardens are currently being spruced up, with
renovations of the tennis court and the pool due for next year.
Half of the rooms will also be refurbished in the next five
years. The furniture will stay the same: the baroque Austrian
armoires, marquetry chests, ornate bedframes in heavy wood
and gilt-frame mirrors.
These ornaments combine with the distinctive architecture of the Castello Stifterhof to create an atmosphere of
magical otherworldliness. Some guests claim to have heard or
even seen a ghost pacing the dimly lit hallways. But old relics
should of course remain a castles charms reside in its heirlooms. (m)

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List of plates
01 The Nibork retreat of
magazine Polityka
02 Staff can relax in the sauna
03 Library with its original
wooden beams
04 Stairs leading to the library
05 Main building as seen from
the grounds
06 Wine cellar
07 Dining area inside the
Fireplace Room
08 A fine eye for detail is applied
to such fixtures as door knobs
09 Ceiling lamp
10 Twin bedroom
11 Side view of main building
12 Terrace by the converted
stables building
13 Entrance to Fireplace Room
14 Sliding doors are one of many
traditional features in Smiles
lakeside retreat
15 Exterior of retreat
16 Lake Kawaguchi
17 Living room
18 One of a number of rooms in
a building designed for teambuilding and hosting clients
19 Dining room, where staff eat
meals prepared together

20 Another sliding door

21 Upstairs room with futon
mattresses for guests to
sleep on
22 Newly renovated shower room
23 Entrance to Castello Stifterhof
24 The dining room is lined with a
porcelain collection
25 17th-century Austrian furnace
covered in glazed majolica tiles
26 Dining-room table overlooking
the gardens
27 Bar below the vaulted arches
28 Entrance to one of the
Stifterhofs guest rooms
29 View of the parlour room with
its grand fireplace
30 Entrance to the Stifterhof
greets visitors with a pennant
inviting everyone to feel
like guests
31 Tuscan fireplace and wooden
chandelier in dining room
32 Balustrade and arches above
the parlour
33 Corner of the parlour room
with Renaissance-style details
34 One of the Stifterhofs
guest rooms

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