COBENZL MANSION
The building complex is partially dug into the hill above the village, it is surrounded by vineyards at its foot, and the forest stretches behind it.
It is said that an unfortified medieval palace, built by the Counts of Bogen, stood there as early as in the 12th century, and was home to Leitenburg ministeriales, after whom the place was named. At the beginning of the 13th century, the estate was inherited by the Counts of Andechs, and after 1228 it became the property of the patriarchs of Aquileia. In 1351 they left it to the Habsburgs, who in 1399 granted it to the Lords of Walsee. In 1472 the estate became the property of the provincial prince, and in the second half of the 16th century it was first leased, and then owned by the Cobenzl family. The current mansion was commissioned in 1675 by Janez Filip Cobenzl. There was also a chapel of the Passion of Jesus in the main building. After the extinction of the family in 1810, the estate was inherited by Count Michael Coronini and sold in 1822 to the physician Jožef Mayer. The mansion was owned by the Mayer family until the Second World War, after which it was nationalised and served for family housing and other activities; for a short time it housed an agricultural school (until 1962). The building is now empty.
The building complex comprises a residential building with a chapel and an elongated wing perpendicular to it; together with a horse stable, they form a letter U and enclose the inner courtyard with a fountain. The floor plan of the residential building is basically Venetian with an elongated central hall and two rows of rooms arranged along it. The staircase is located at the end of the hall, thus continuing the Baroque movement along the central axis, which starts with the entrance portal on the ground floor, i.e. with bifora in piano nobile. An arched wine cellar stretches across half of the building transversely to the hall. The main façade, which faces south-east and whose central axis accentuated by a rustic stone portal, a stone coat of arms and a bifora above it, is flanked by towers; the columns are placed slantwise to the main façade, giving it Baroque-style complexity while also optically elongating it. Despite the distinctive defensive elements, such as stone key-shaped arrowslits under the windows and the sloping masonry work in the lower part, finished with a stone torus, the towers never had a defensive role.
