Hidden in a sea of greenery and tucked away between the mountains of the Salzkammergut region near Salzburg, one of Austria’s last privately owned lakes, the Mondsee or Moon Lake, is up for sale. No official notice went up for this little jewel, which is just 1.5km wide and 11km long with a depth of 65m, but its owner Nicolette Waechter has announced she wants to sell the property, which has belonged to her family since the 18th century.
“It has been in the family since around 1760 and it belonged to a Benedictine convent before that,” she said.
Waechter inherited the lake and its banks after her brother’s death in 1977 and has since managed the lot, taking in rent from each piece of land, bankside or pier.
“The figure of 16 million euros [US$24.9 million] has been mentioned, but I don’t want to comment about that,” she said following media speculation about the price of the estate.
In any case, prospective buyers have already been lining up.
“I have had so many, mostly estate agents from Austria, neighboring Bavaria and Germany,” said Waechter.
The picturesque lake gave its name to an early civilization that lived in the late Neolithic period, between 3600BC and 3300BC, after ancient pillars were found in the 19th century in the town of Mondsee.
Waechter, who is now in her 60s, decided earlier this year to look for a buyer when she grew tired of the problems associated with managing such a piece of land.
Several trials to ban motorboats on the lake — which she all lost — cost her a million schillings at the time, the equivalent of 74,000 euros today.
Only five of the hundred or so Austrian lakes over 5 hectares in size — the Mondsee has a surface of 14km2 — are still under private ownership.
These include the Neusiedlersee, south of Vienna, which has been classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site and belongs to the Esterhazy family; the Irrsee near Mondsee, which belongs to a local fishing club; the Achensee in Tyrol, which is owned by the city of Innsbruck; and the Austrian section of Lake Constance, which borders Switzerland and Germany and belongs to the town of Bregenz.
Local tabloids have speculated that the boss of energy drink producer Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, could buy the Mondsee, but Waechter has rejected these rumors. Instead, she contacted the Austrian Federal Forestry Service, which owns about a hundred lakes around the country.
“We manage most of the Austrian lakes, so by principle we’re interested in taking over the Mondsee,” spokesman Bernhard Schragl said.
Managing this particular lake would mean handling about a thousand contracts for rental or use of the land, which is a lot of work for just one person, Schragl said.
“We recently made an alternative offer to Mrs Waechter: We’ll manage the lake for her for free for two years, during which she will continue to receive revenues from it. And then we’ll make an offer to buy,” he said.
Waechter said she “immediately refused” when she heard this, adding “this offer is unacceptable.”
The forestry service has said it does not want to put her under pressure and for now, Waechter says she would rather “wait and think” about her various offers.
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