Porsche magnate puts historic Salzburg villa up for sale after row over private ‘tunnel for one’

The Salzburg villa, known locally as the Paschinger Schlössl, was once the home of Stefan Zweig, whose memoirs inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images View image in fullscreen The Salzburg villa, known locally as the Paschinger Schlössl, was once the home of Stefan Zweig, whose memoirs inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images Porsche magnate puts historic Salzburg villa up for sale after row over private ‘tunnel for one’ Plans by Wolfgang Porsche to bore private 500-metre road link through Austrian hill caused anger among locals Wolfgang Porsche, the Austrian-German automotive magnate, appears to have abandoned plans to build a private 500-metre tunnel for his cars through the Salzburg hills after a public uproar over the “tunnel for one”. In 2020, Porsche bought a storied 17th-century villa on the outskirts of Salzburg for €8.4m (£7.2m), and last autumn he secured permission from the city authorities for an estimated €10m private access road through the rugged limestone hill. The 83-year-old’s vision was for the tunnel to lead from a municipal car park in the city centre to a subterranean garage next to the villa where he would be able to park eight cars. View image in fullscreen Wolfgang Porsche next to a silver Porsche 356 Speedster prototype from 1954. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance/Alamy The proposal sparked incredulity and anger among many locals, not least because of the historic nature of the property, which was once the home of Stefan Zweig . The Jewish writer lived in it until he was driven out of the city in 1934 by the Austro-fascist regime. ‘One rule for the rich’: the Salzburg mansion, the Porsche heir and the writer Stefan Zweig Read more It appears Porsche has performed a dramatic U-turn, putting the 12-room estate, known locally as the Paschinger Schlössl, on the market instead. A new owner would be permitted to build the tunnel, although they would have to rush to do so as the planning permission – for which Porsche paid €48,000 – is valid only until the end of 2028. City authorities have dashed the hopes of those who have campaigned for years, since long before Porsche bought it, for the villa to come into state hands and be turned into a museum dedicated to the memory of Zweig. Bernhard Auinger, the mayor of Salzburg, said the city could not afford to buy it. View image in fullscreen A view of Kapuzinerberg, the hill behind which the villa is obscured. Zweig said one of its charms was that it was ‘inaccessible to cars’. Photograph: Helena Lea Manhartsberger/The Guardian Zweig , whose memoirs inspired the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, described the house as “romantic and impractical”, writing that among its charms was that it was “inaccessible to cars” and could “only be reached by climbing the more than a hundred steps” of the Kapuzinerberg, the hill on which it is set. According to local media reports, the backlash over Porsche’s tunnel plans,