The Austrian folk poet Peter Rosegger was born the eldest of seven children in this simple 18thcentury Alpine farmhouse on July 31st 1843. Living conditions were extremely modest: the cooking was done over a hearth in the Rauchkuchl or scullery, while the central room was used for eating and sleeping, and as a work room, too. Here, visitors can view numerous furnishings and fixtures which testify to the simple rural life in the 19th century.

Even today, the only way to reach Rosegger’s birthplace is on foot: after a half-hour walk through the Alpl woodland, a path eventually leads up to a collection of buildings consisting of a home, outhouses, a barn, a rural storehouse and a dried flaxen hut. Rosegger often draws on memories of his childhood on the Alpl in his writings and coined the term ‘Waldheimat’ (‘forest home’) for this place. His birthplace was also where he took the first tentative steps towards becoming a writer, followed later by an extensive body of literary works.

In Peter Rosegger’s childhood days the ‘front Kluppenegger’ – a property covering just over 58 joche (33.4 hectares or 82.5 acres) – was considered a medium-sized farm. It consisted of a farmhouse, stalls and pens for some 20 cows, 8 pigs, 25 sheep and chickens as well as several farm outbuildings such as granary barns, hay and straw stacks, a flax scutching hut and a grain mill.

The central beam in the main front room indicates that the original building was completed in 1744. And the first Roßegger – the original document uses ‘ß’ instead of ‘ss’ – arrived on the scene a short time later. This particular relative was Peter’s great-grandfather, who acquired the ‘front Kluppenegger’ (first mentioned in historical records in 1493) through marriage. His son Ignaz Roßegger died at an early age but had bequeathed the farm to Lorenz Roßegger, who had yet to reach the age of majority, in 1829. Peter was born in the large parlour on July 31st 1843, the son of Lorenz and Maria Roßegger.

Over the years, poor harvests, livestock disease and sickness pushed the farm into ever greater debt, forcing its eventual sale in 1868. To begin with, the parents with their two youngest moved into the living room at the back of the house and later on into a property – one traditionally kept for use by the older generation – by the Freßnitz stream. This small farm featured fields, meadows and agricultural buildings.

The farmstead changed ownership several times throughout the years. On Rosegger’s 70th birthday his friends attempted to buy back his house of birth as well as the surrounding property, a bid that failed due to the price demanded.

In 1927 the Province of Styria acquired the Kluppeneggerhof. The farmhouse was meantime dilapidated and the outhouses little more than ruins. The estate manager’s house was built two years later using stones taken from Rosegger’s birthplace. In the 1970s the Brechelhütte (‘flaxbreaking hut’) was reconfigured and reconstructed, with a similar process occurring for the Umadumstall (‘wall-to-wall outhouse’) on the occasion of the 1993 Styrian Exhibition, using the remains of walls and Rosegger’s sketches.

In May 1877 Rosegger used the revenue from his first books to finance the purchase of arable land in Krieglach covering an area of almost one joch (about 0.57 hectares or 1.4 acres). He then had a country home built on this plot in the same year, based on his own designs. He had already begun planting trees on his property even before the first spade had been turned. Ultimately, 60 small trees grew up around his new home. Even today, three of the wonderful linden trees he planted still provide splendid shade. His house eventually consisted of seven rooms to live in, along with other side rooms. As early as September 1877 he moved immediately into the first completed but still damp room of the building and began working there. As a result, his health deteriorated to a worrying degree.

Every year, in Krieglach, after ‘six months of earthly existence in the town... [he spent] six months of paradise in the country’ from May to October. As his family grew in size, Rosegger extended his home, even building a wooden lodge (the so-called Almhaus [Alpine House] – today’s Studierhäusl [little studio lodge]) in the garden in 1896. His hopes were pinned on the small building, constructed entirely of wood, to alleviate his asthma. He used it as a place of retreat and as a guesthouse.

The poet died in Krieglach on June 26th 1918. His widow Anna made efforts to sort through his literary work, and also closed Rosegger’s studio and the room in which he passed away to preserve these for posterity. Anna Rosegger continued to live in Krieglach up to her death in 1932. In 1943 the Province of Styria acquired the property to mark the centenary of the poet’s birth, opening it up to the general public in 1948. In 1963 the inheritors to Rosegger’s estate also sold the Almhaus at the Landhaus. It was ceded to the Roseggerbund (the ‘Rosegger Association’) which operated a museum local history at this site from 1968 to 2013.