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Franz Ferdinand was, like most notables of the day, a dedicated proprietor. The magnificent Villa d'Este in Italy was his by inheritance from the Duke of Modena, as was Schloß Chlumetz in Bohemia. On its grounds of some 25 square miles were forests of great quality. Schloß Artstetten in Lower Austria would eventually be his upon his father's death. And of course the Habsburg Family Fund put a number of other properties at his disposal upon becoming Thronfolger, amongst which are Eckartsau, east of Vienna (where the last Emperor, Karl, would retreat to after signing the abdication), Ambras in Tirol, Blühnbach near Salzburg, and even the Hofburg and Belvedere in Vienna.
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Franz Ferdinand also bought properties. His favourite hunting-lodge was Lölling in Kärnten, where the forests were particularly suited to hunting. Throughout his life he was a very keen marksman. And a prolific slaughterer of game; according to official lists from hunts and other sources, Archduke Franz Ferdinand shot 274,889 animals and birds of various species during his life. The 'record' for one year was 18,799 – although it should be pointed out that on official hunts the majority of game was driven toward the Archduke's position. This love of hunting bordered on a mania to accumulate killings – something that does not sit well with our early-21st Century world. Records and tallies such as shooting his 100th eagle in Kupinovo on 9th May, 1911, his 1,000th chamois in Golling on 8th October, 1912, or his 6,000th stag at Witzeldorf on 1st November, 1913 ... understandably suggest a certain vulgarity today. He was, however, also an efficient land manager and through his care and attention, by judiciously reforesting areas which had been cleared and by improving the feeding of the game, he was able to increase quite considerably the amount of animals and birds on his estates and game preserves. With his interest in the protection of nature and of landscapes, he collected more than 1,000 published volumes on these subjects, as well as numerous hunting trophies, engravings and paintings (many by the renowned Alois Jungwirth) whose main theme was hunting or the Patron Saint of Hunters, St. Hubert. It should be remembered that, however distasteful the concept of The Hunt may be today, it was quite de rigeur in Franz Ferdinand's day – even if he excelled at it ...
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But his favourite residence was probably Schloß Konopischt/Konopište, some 25 miles south of Prague. The Gothic-style castle dates from the 13th Century, survived the Hussite Wars and plundering by Swedes during the Thirty Years War, and was then rebuilt as a baroque residence. By the time Franz Ferdinand bought the property in 1887 it was in quite poor condition. Both the castle and the surrounding property enjoyed a lot of work and expense at refurbishment, most of it under the supervision of the architect Josef Mocker. A nearby sugar refinery, a brewery and an inn were surreptitiously demolished or relocated simply to improve the view! The English-style wooded grounds were enlarged by adding the rock quarries of Mràz and Pozar, the brewery at nearby Beneschau/Benešov, and two brickworks. The park's rose gardens were particularly renowned, admired by visitors and horticulturalists alike. Konopischt's interior was furnished by items from the Villa d'Este and included an extensive collection of weapons and armour, amounting to 4,618 pieces. There is also an exhibition gallery with 3,750 statuettes of St. George – Franz Ferdinand seemed to have had a fetish for the mythical dragon-slayer!
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Although Schloß Konopischt was where the family spent most of their time, Schloß Artstetten was Franz Ferdinand's true 'family home,' inherited from his father Karl Ludwig upon the latter's death in 1896. Beautifully situated in the sedate village of the same name and some two miles from Klein-Pöchlarn on the Danube, the Schloß would appear not to have enjoyed an entirely fortuitous history. The original castle was first mentioned in the 13th Century, but underwent numerous changes before the front was rebuilt by Mattäus Grundreching in 1570. Between 1691 and 1698 – in line with the major rebuilding of during the Baroque movement – construction was completed by Maximilian Braun von Rotenhaus, who added two wings. Both village and Schloß were destroyed by fire in 1730, and again in 1760. The Schloß roof was ripped apart by a violent storm in 1791. Schloß Artstetten was the official residence of Emperor Karl II/I's widow Kaiserin Carolina Augusta and Erzherzog Karl Ludwig. Although Konopischt, Chlumetz, Lölling and Vienna drew Franz Ferdinand away from Artstetten, the birth of a still-born child – as well as Sophie having been denied the right of burial with her husband in the Habsburg family vault of the Kapuzinerkirche in Vienna – made him decide upon some reconstruction and modernizing of the Schloß so that it could be used by his widow and descendents as their principal residence later on. Additions included, amongst others, the onion-domed towers, a lower 'annex' with two smaller towers (the first phase of a redesign, with further additions intended later; and which is now the entrance to the Schloß museum), and the family crypt beneath the chapel.
These homes were much appreciated: after all, they kept the family in comfortable and 'safe' surroundings, away from the viccissitudes of Vienna. But in Vienna there was also a more or less 'official' residence: the Belvedere, a Baroque masterpiece built by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt as summer residence for Prinz Eugen of Savoye, vanquisher of the Ottoman Turks. From 1897 the Oberes Belvedere underwent remodelling and modernising after plans by the architect Emil von Förster. At first the Hofburg was the official residence in the capital, but this was very much Franz Josef's place (although following Kaiserin Elisabeth's death he would spend more and more time at Schloß Schönbrunn or at his villa in Bad Ischl). So, following the unpleasant break with his Habsburg relatives in 1898/99 Franz Ferdinand decided upon the Belvedere as his preferred city residence, moving in in 1899 and personalizing it further. Neo-Baroque furnishings supplemented the original Baroque furniture, and objects from the Este family's art collection were also exhibited in the rooms of the Oberes Belvedere.
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Following the tragic death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand the elderly Emperor – perhaps mellowing at last as yet another relative came to an untimely, violent end, but also because it was The Right Thing to do – attributed a stipend Habsburg Family Fund to his nephew's orphaned children Sophie, Maximilian and Ernst. The executor of the estate, Graf Jaroslaw Thurn, perhaps foreseeing economic uncertainties in the future, exchanged this monetary income for the forestry properties of Eisenerz and Radmer. These were expropriated by the Third Reich in 1939, then restored in 1945. The estates of Konopischt and Chlumetz were confiscated in 1919 by the newly-established state of Czecho-Slovakia, and the still-minor children were exiled under the law relating to all members of the Habsburg family. The entire inventories of both properties were seized, including clothing, photographs and other personal objects. Princess Sophie was permitted, upon the occasion of her marriage to Graf Friedrich Nostitz-Rieneck in 1920, to take back a few of the personal items from the room she had used as a young girl.
Like his father Karl Ludwig, Franz Ferdinand enjoyed an artistic bent, or at least a keen appreciation of the Arts & Sciences. His art collections tended to prefer military, historical and country themes and subjects, and as such he was quite conservative. He was quite outraged by 'scandalous' modern architecture, particularly if it did not 'fit in' with existing grandeur. For example, in 1912 he vowed never again to use the Michaelertor (the grandiose east entrance into the Hofburg) opposite which on Michaelerplatz had been completed the unadorned Loos Haus. Architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933) loathed ornamentation for its own sake, favouring smooth lines and lack of 'eyebrows' (the window hoods on most Viennese buildings).
Under Franz Ferdinand's patronage were artists such as Alois Jungwirth (hunting scenes), August Ramberg and Alexander Kirchner (maritime paintings), and the House of Artists in Vienna. Franz Ferdinand avidly collected antiques, naïve or rustic paintings, peasant furniture, ceramics, stones and minerals, painted glass, a vast assortment of ancient weaponry and pieces of armour, as well as clocks and medals. His intention was to establish a large museum for the various regional arts and crafts of the Empire, but the project was never completed. The Konopischt/Konopište and Chlumetz/Chlumec collections in Czecho-Slovakia were expropriated in 1919 and opened to the public. During the Second World War most of the collections were exhibited in the Wehrmacht Museum in Prague, and in 1944 Hitler ordered 72,712 objects transported to Vienna to be exhibited later – 'after the war' – in his private museum which was under (very slow) construction in Linz. The city was to have been Hitler's cultural capital of the Third Reich, the counterweight to the Vienna he detested. He had spent his formative years in Linz studying Art before moving to Vienna and developing his anti-Semitic spite and jaundiced rhetoric, and deemed Linz the most 'German' town in the Austrian Empire, symbolizing for him the provincial small-town Germanic idyll. Models of the idealized Linz were designed by Hermann Giesler to be built 'after the war' into the most beautiful city on the Danube so that Hitler could retire thither as an elder statesman, still advising his successor and dispensing National-Socialist aphorisms. Fortunately, Linz was spared the brutal Neo-Classical architecture of his monstrous mind. During the retreat of Germany's armed forces in 1945 the Konopischt/Konopište and Chlumetz/Chlumec collections were hidden in the salt mines of Bad Aussee, and finally in 1946, despite the protests of both the Austrian government and the Duke of Hohenberg, the entire collection was returned to Konopište.
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