Villa Trapp Derailed in Salzburg

Salzburg turns down plan to open the Von Trapp family's former Austrian residence as a hotel

After the 1965 "Sound of Music" film became a hit, so many visitors to Stowe, VT, came looking for the mountain property where the Trapp Family Lodge was located that local youngsters began sporting T-shirts reading, "I Live in Stowe and I don't Know the Way to Trapps." Perhaps taking a cue from the Vermont experience, the Austrian city of Salzburg denied permission for the former Trapp family residence to open as a small, 14-room hotel to be called Villa Trapp in what the Associated Press described as "a quiet, upscale Salzburg neighborhood."

Residents reportedly were concerned that tourists would cause traffic jams and become a neighborhood nuisance, which is quite astonishing considering that they film came out more than 43 years ago. Then again, Salzburgers are very away of the film's enduring appeal. Sound of Music tours to the sites where scenes were filmed remain among the most popular in Salzburg.

Reuters added another layer to the tale, reporting, "In Austria, visitors can get married at the villa, which was home to the real von Trapps from 1923 to 1938 before they fled the Nazi takeover of Austria. Nazi Germany's security chief Heinrich Himmler used the villa, just outside Salzburg, as a home close to the Austrian Alps until 1945. Some opponents of the hotel have accused the developers of wanting to build a memorial to Nazism." The developers reportedly plan to mitigate the traffic impact but have seemingly not addressed the concern about Nazi era glorification.