About us
at Lake Kochelsee

The most famous guest of the Schlehdorf inn “Klosterbräu”, built in 1317, was the Bavarian King Ludwig II, who – like his father King Maximilian II – stayed here several times. We can see from letters he wrote to his friend and composer Richard Wagner in 1865 and 1878 just how much he enjoyed spending time in the Oberland:

“Now I am back in the glorious mountains, where I finally find more leisure, peace and quiet than in the noise of the wretched city: in God’s free nature!

Schlehdorf, located on the western shore of Lake Kochelsee in the southern tip of the Pfaffenwinkel, can look back on a history of over twelve hundred years. This was largely determined by the activity of its monasteries, which shaped the life of the village, first mentioned in a document in 763 as “Villa Schlehdorf”, and its inhabitants until secularization (1803).

The Benedictine monastery on the edge of Scharnitz (Klais) moved its convent to Schlehdorf in 722, where there was already a church dedicated to the Franconian saint Dionysius. In the same year, the founding family Reginperht transferred the remains of the martyred priest Tertulin from Rome to the church in Schlehdorf as a gift from Pope Hadrian I. He remains the patron saint of the church to this day. Like his predecessor Arbeo from Scharnitz in 765, Abbot Atto also became Bishop of Freising.

Around the year 907, the Hungarians destroyed the early Schlehdorf monastery, the presumed location of which is indicated by a memorial cross on the path to the motorboat landing stage. The second Schledorf monastery was built around 1140 by the Augustinian canons on the Anger of today’s Kirchbichl with the support of Bishop Otto I of Freising.

The “Klosterbräu” inn, owned by the Schrauf family since 1929, is the oldest of Schlehdorf’s surviving buildings. The year of origin of the house, which originally served as the monastery’s farm building, is dated 131 and later acquired its character as the “Würths and Mayer House”. In a letter dated January 23, 1611, Duke Maximilian I allowed the provost to serve the monastery beer and food “for due payment” – but only to Schlehdorf farmers on particularly festive occasions such as “chair celebrations” (engagements), weddings, christenings and more. This established an old tavern tradition that made the “Klosterbräu” the center of social village life. Over the next few centuries, the monastery complex was severely damaged by the Loisach flooding into the Kochelsee (1529). At the beginning of the 18th century, the Augustinian canons decided to build a new monastery on the Kirchbichl, where a chapel, already described as “ancient” in 1596, had stood. The right wing was occupied in 1724; the church, built in the transitional style from Rococo to Classicism, was not consecrated until 1780. The old monastery buildings, which also housed the brewery and, above all, the venerable late Romanesque monastery church, were destroyed by arson in 1784. The monastery inn was now extended by the construction of the right side wing and took over the brewery. This is how it became the real “Klosterbräu”, the name it still bears today.

The monastery was dissolved in the course of secularization: the monastery church – now the parish church of the village – was able to defy all measures of secularization. Schlehdorf, whose farmers had been raising livestock, lumbering and fishing for more than 1200 years, was completely destroyed by a fire during a foehn storm in 1846: of 39 properties, only one house was spared, apart from the “Klosterbräu”. The reconstruction of the village was carried out at the instigation of King Ludwig I in an expediently conceived uniformity. Around 1860, Schlehdorf counted 320 souls. In 1980, the municipality had 1050 inhabitants including the district of Unterau. The brewery inn hosted King Maximilian II as an illustrious guest in 1857. During his reign, King Ludwig II always had two separate rooms with exquisite furnishings at his disposal. Even today, the “royal rooms” of the “Klosterbräu” inn still contain some valuable pieces of furniture from this period.

In 1904, the Missionary Dominican Sisters took the Schlehdorf convent into their care. They worked tirelessly to restore and extend the buildings that had been preserved (the left wing of the monastery was rebuilt in 1927). They not only created an important training facility for their order, but also a girls’ school with a boarding school, which enables students to obtain a degree in home economics or a secondary school leaving certificate. One of Schlehdorf’s gems is the “Holy Cross” cemetery chapel from the 17th century. It contains a precious larger-than-life crucifix by the master hand of a woodcarver who created the work of art in the Romanesque period (around 1200).