Hi Wikipedia Community I work at UBS and would love you to consider setting up a page for one of our properties Schloss Wolfsberg. We currently have a german page ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Wolfsberg_(Ermatingen) ) approved by the Wikipedia DE community and I would love to have the same kind of information for English. Can you guys help me? Where should I submit this?
The English text could be as below
Wikipedia Article Wolfsberg
Château Wolfsberg (Ermatingen) Location and use Wolfsberg is the name of a historic castle estate in the municipality of Ermatingen in the canton of Thurgau (Switzerland). Château Wolfsberg stands on an elevated, north-facing plateau between Lower Lake Constance and the Thur Valley. Although it is one of the younger and more modest of the castles in the vicinity of Lake Constance, Wolfsberg boasts an extraordinarily rich and eventful history, which reached its peak under the Bonapartists in the 1820s and 30s. The property has been owned by UBS since 1970 and is now the «Wolfsberg – UBS Center for Education and Dialogue» used for internal and external seminars and congresses.
Owner and building history (selection) The history of the Wolfsberg dates back to the 16th century and is as varied as the numerous owners of the property. The following is a selection of the most significant historical stations.
Built in the 16th century The name "Wolfsberg" originates from the château's first owner Wolf Walter von Gryffenberg. In 1573, he purchased a plot of land called “an der Halden,” which was owned by the municipal authorities of Ermatingen, and built his new residence, which he named “Wolfsberg,” in this prominent position in 1576. According to old sources containing images that have since been lost, it is said to have been a half-timbered construction with tall stepped gables. In the following years, the squire repeatedly got into legal disputes with the municipality and surrounding monasteries, which finally forced him to sell his property prematurely for financial reasons.
Wolfsberg as a Freisitz In 1595, Friedrich Gelderich von Sigmarshofen acquired the château. The Gelderich family came from Ravensburg and were raised to nobility in 1559 by Emperor Ferdinand I. The new owner extended the property through substantial land acquisitions and in 1595, he received lower jurisdiction within the château area. This meant that Wolfsberg would be one of Thurgau's Freisitze (farmsteads that were exempt from duties and taxes) for the next 200 years until the end of the feudal era.
Rebuilding the old château In 1731, the manor came into the possession of squire Johannes Zollikofer von und zu Altenklingen, one of the most respected patrician families in Switzerland. He adapted the Wolfsberg, which had hardly changed since its construction, to the current living requirements. Thus, at the beginning of the 1730s, the manorial solid building came into being as we still know it today. As the first landowner in the area to use a carriage, he also ensured that the often impassable access roads to Wolfsberg were paved.
The new château In 1795, the wealthy Baron Jean Jacques Högger (1795–1815), a banker and merchant from Amsterdam, acquired the estate. The imperial Russian Councillor of State, who was highly regarded in business circles, used Wolfsberg as a summer residence, spending the winter in Munich. Around 1797, he had the new château (now called the “Parquin House”) built to the south-west of the existing building. It was intended as guest accommodation and included a riding hall in the central part. Although the feudal system had come to an end around a decade earlier and Wolfsberg was no longer a Freisitz, the estate experienced a period of splendor under Jean Jacques Högger's ownership. According to guest books and contemporary press reports, the château owner hosted numerous well-known figures. These even included Bavarian King Maximilian I, who visited Wolfsberg in July 1811 with a large entourage, as well as young composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826, composer of the world-famous opera «Der Freischütz»), and who spent several days there in August of the same year.
Meeting point for the Bonapartists and Thurgau's first guest house In 1824, Wolfsberg passed into the hands of a keen supporter of Napoleon I: Charles Parquin (1824–1839). After the defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the overthrown Emperor Napoleon I was forced into exile. His relatives also fled the country, and among them was Hortense de Beauharnais (1783–1837), the daughter from Empress Joséphine's first marriage and the wife of one of his brothers. In 1817, Hortense de Beauharnais sought exile in Switzerland and acquired Château Arenenberg near Mannenbach, Thurgau. There, she hosted numerous relatives and supporters of the emperor, including Charles Parquin, who, as an ardent admirer of Napoleon, had risen in rank during numerous battles. In 1824, Parquin had the opportunity to purchase nearby Wolfsberg. The close ties to Château Arenenberg, where a growing number of guests from nearby countries used to stay, prompted Parquin to convert the new château into Thurgau's first guest house. Inspired by Château Arenenberg, he had part of the former riding hall converted into a tent room and had the guest rooms fitted with all the modern comforts of the time. Parquin had a chapel built for Catholic worship. Between 1825 and 1830, a stately ice cellar was also constructed to store the ice needed in summer, and the remise (coach house), which still exists to this day, was also built in the mid-1820s. Through targeted advertising and multilingual brochures, he drew the attention of the international nobility to his modern company and was able to count such celebrities as Franz Liszt, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alexandre Dumas the Elder and Sophie Gay among his guests. Due to later financial difficulties, Parquin tried to sell the Wolfsberg, but had to declare bankruptcy in 1839.
Model farm The next owner, English country gentleman Joseph Martin Parry, was met with a largely neglected estate in Wolfsberg. Within a short period of time, he had a model farm built. Among other things, Parry introduced the four and six-year rotation of fodder and improved the oat and wheat yield by sourcing selected seeds from England and Germany.
Château Wolfsberg as a spa hotel After Parry's death in 1846, Wolfsberg changed hands in rapid succession as a victim of property speculation. It was not until 1865 that the property finally came into the possession of Karl Bürgi-Ammann from the Swiss hotelier family Bürgi. He converted the "Parquinhaus" into a spa hotel with a restaurant, restored the "Zeltsaal" and added a sun terrace to the north side of the upper floor. After his death, his son Karl Bürgi-Trescher continued to run the business. The outbreak of the First World War brought the flourishing business to an early end.
The last private owner After several sales, the Zurich lawyer Paul Eduard Meyer, who was known as a crime writer under the pseudonym Wolf Schwertenbach, purchased the Wolfsberg in 1938. He devoted himself to restoring the historic substance of the castle, chapel and farm buildings. In the years 1939 to 1945, he facilitated conspiratorial meetings at Wolfsberg between the SS Brigadier General and head of the German foreign intelligence service, Walter Schellenberg, and the Swiss Brigadier Colonel and head of the military intelligence service, Roger Masson. The head of the Swiss Army, General Henri Guisan, was also kept closely informed about these meetings.
Acquisition by UBS In 1970, the Schweizerische Bankgesellschaft (known today as UBS) acquired the château complex and the surrounding 12 hectares of land in order to convert it into a training center. Extensive renovation of the existing historic buildings and construction of the new buildings were carried out by Zurich-based architects Esther and Rudolf Guyer and completed in spring 1975. The training center opened on May 8 of the same year.
Ongoing development Between 2005 and 2008, the three-part hotel wing with 122 guest rooms was redesigned by Zurich architects Arndt Geiger Herrmann. At the same time, the historic ice cellar was restored and a new underground garage with 90 parking spaces was built. Under the direction of the St. Gallen architectural firm Klaiber Partnership AG (today Forma Architekten AG), the castle was renovated from 2011 to 2012 and, with the addition of modern elements, brought closer to the baroque building fabric of 1732. The most recent structural changes took place from December 2017 to March 2020 with the construction of the new seminar and conference building, again by Zurich architects Arndt Geiger Herrmann. The new seminar and conference center «Wolfsberg - UBS Center for Education and Dialogue» is closely related to the surrounding nature and forms a harmonious unit with the historic existing buildings. Around 20 seminar and conference rooms of various sizes are available for external and internal UBS events. The new building meets standards of sustainable construction and is certified as Minergie-P-Eco.
Where traditional and modern buildings stand side by side The diverse succession of owners since the 16th century has inevitably led to drastic architectural alterations. Hardly anything remains of the original building as constructed in the 1570s. Despite this, the château and grounds have stayed as a unit as they have evolved through the centuries, retaining the charm of a stately residence in the midst of largely undeveloped surroundings. The present owner, UBS, aims to preserve and maintain a part of Swiss cultural history. The complex is divided into two groups of buildings – an old one and a new one. The historical buildings situated nearer the lake – comprising the château, the Parquin House, the chapel, the library, and the remise (coach house) – together with the covered walkway form an ensemble closed on three sides, surrounding a grass and tree-lined courtyard. The new buildings, which are set back towards the edge of the forest in the south-east, are clearly separated from the old buildings, with a long colonnade at the main entrance forming a link between the two.
The Wolfsberg Group Wolfsberg also plays a role beyond UBS in the context of the Wolfsberg Group: around the millennium, the estate became the name-giver for an association of globally active banks that jointly develop standards against money laundering and terrorist financing. The Wolfsberg Group is an association of currently 13 international banks, which met for the first time at the Wolfsberg in 1999 and have since maintained an intensive exchange. The Anti-Money Laundering Principles for Private Banking were developed by the Wolfsberg Group in 2000 (with amendments in 2002 and 2012) as the first binding statement and have since been supplemented by other standards such as the Principles for Correspondent Banking. Together, the 17 documents form the so-called Wolfsberg Standards. The group holds regular meetings in various constellations and with the involvement of regulators, experts and other third parties (www.wolfsberg-principles.com).
Bibliography
• Cornelia Stäheli: Schloss Wolfsberg bei Ermatingen. (Schweizerischer Kunstführer, Nr. 687, Reihe 69). Hrsg. Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte GSK. Bern 2013, ISBN 978-3-85782-687-0.
• www.wolfsberg.com
• www.ubs.com/ch/en/wolfsberg/history.html