A city for everyone instead of a tunnel for one
In Salzburg, a city where housing costs have pushed ordinary families to the margins, an 83-year-old automotive heir sought to bore a private tunnel through a historic limestone hill so he might never share a street with his neighbors. The plan collided with the memory of Stefan Zweig, who once celebrated that same hill's resistance to the automobile, and with a public that saw in the tunnel not merely an extravagance but a question about the soul of a city. Wolfgang Porsche has since placed the villa on the market, but the permission he purchased remains attached to the property, and the argument it provoked—about who a city is truly built for—has not been so easily sold.
- An octogenarian billionaire's plan to carve a half-kilometre private tunnel through a culturally sacred hill became an instant lightning rod in a city already raw from a housing crisis.
- Protesters filled Salzburg's streets with banners reading 'A city for everyone instead of a tunnel for one,' transforming a planning dispute into a referendum on wealth and belonging.
- The ghost of Stefan Zweig—who praised the villa's very inaccessibility to cars—made the tunnel feel like a deliberate erasure of the site's literary and moral history.
- Porsche has retreated, listing the estate for €12.7 million, but his agents are marketing the tunnel permission itself as a luxury selling point, keeping the controversy very much alive.
- The Salzburg Greens are now pressing authorities to revoke the approval entirely, warning that public land is being converted into a speculative asset for whoever buys next.
Wolfgang Porsche, the 83-year-old automotive magnate, bought Salzburg's Paschinger Schlössl—a 17th-century villa on the Kapuzinerberg hill—for €8.4 million in 2020. Last autumn he secured city approval for a €10 million private tunnel, 500 metres long, that would have connected a municipal car park directly to an underground garage beneath the estate, allowing him to park eight cars without ever setting foot on a public street. The permission alone cost €48,000. What followed was something he apparently had not anticipated: sustained, organised public fury.
The fury had two sources. The first was historical. Stefan Zweig, the celebrated Jewish writer forced from Salzburg by the Austro-fascist regime in 1934, had lived in that very villa and written of it with affection precisely because it was 'inaccessible to cars'—reachable only by climbing more than a hundred steps. His memoirs later inspired Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, and local activists had long campaigned for the house to become a public museum in his memory. The tunnel proposal felt, to many, like a desecration.
The second source was economic. Salzburg is in the grip of a housing crisis. Rents are punishing, young families are leaving, and the spectacle of a billionaire boring through a historic hill for private convenience struck residents as a provocation. Banners appeared across the city: 'A city for everyone instead of a tunnel for one.'
Porsche has now put the 12-room estate on the market for €12.7 million. His real estate agent is marketing the tunnel permission as a selling point—a 'remarkable, approved private tunnel project' that 'elevates the property into a category of its own.' The permission expires at the end of 2028. His manager declined to acknowledge the public pressure, framing the controversy as an 'envy-driven debate.'
The Salzburg Greens are unsatisfied. They are calling on the city to revoke the tunnel approval, arguing it has artificially inflated the property's value using public land. The mayor has acknowledged the city cannot afford to buy the villa and create the Zweig museum activists have long wanted. The estate now waits for a buyer—and the question it raised about who a city belongs to waits with it.
Wolfgang Porsche, the 83-year-old Austrian-German automotive magnate, has decided to sell his Salzburg villa and abandon one of the most contentious infrastructure projects in the city's recent memory: a private 500-metre tunnel bored through limestone hills to connect a municipal car park directly to an underground garage beneath his estate.
In 2020, Porsche purchased the Paschinger Schlössl, a 17th-century villa on Salzburg's outskirts, for €8.4 million. Last autumn, he secured city approval for the tunnel project, estimated to cost €10 million, which would have allowed him to park eight cars in a subterranean garage without ever setting foot on a public street. The tunnel permission alone cost him €48,000. But the plan ignited something unexpected: sustained public anger that ultimately persuaded him to put the entire 12-room estate on the market for €12.7 million instead.
The backlash was rooted in both symbolism and timing. The villa's history made the tunnel proposal feel almost deliberately provocative. Stefan Zweig, the celebrated Jewish writer, lived there until 1934, when the Austro-fascist regime forced him from the city. Zweig had written fondly of the house as "romantic and impractical," noting with apparent satisfaction that it was "inaccessible to cars" and could "only be reached by climbing the more than a hundred steps" of the Kapuzinerberg, the hill on which it stands. His memoirs later inspired Wes Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel. For decades, local activists had campaigned for the villa to become a state-owned museum dedicated to Zweig's memory—a cultural institution rather than a private playground.
The timing made it worse. Salzburg, like much of Austria, is gripped by a housing crisis. Rents have become extortionate. Young families are being priced out. Against this backdrop, the image of an octogenarian billionaire boring a half-kilometre tunnel through a historic hill so he would never have to walk or drive through the city like everyone else struck many residents as obscene. Protesters hung banners around Salzburg declaring: "A city for everyone instead of a tunnel for one." The slogan captured something beyond mere envy—a question about what a city is for, and who it belongs to.
Porsche's real estate agent has now begun marketing the tunnel permission as a selling point, telling potential buyers they will be "seduced by" the "remarkable, approved private tunnel project" and its "unique annex for underground garage," which "elevates the property into a category of its own." The permission remains valid only until the end of 2028, creating urgency for any new owner willing to complete the work. When asked why Porsche had reversed course, his real estate manager declined to cite the public outcry directly, instead describing the controversy as an "envy-driven debate." He suggested that Porsche and his wife, Gabriele zu Leiningen—herself formerly married to the Aga Khan—would have struggled to live in the villa as originally envisaged.
The Salzburg Greens, however, are not satisfied with Porsche's departure. They are calling on city authorities to withdraw the tunnel permission entirely, arguing that the approval has artificially inflated the property's value and constituted a form of real estate speculation using public resources. Ingeborg Haller of the Greens told Austrian media: "It cannot be that public land is being used for real estate speculation. This is about equal rights for all." The city's mayor, Bernhard Auinger, has made clear that Salzburg cannot afford to purchase the villa itself and convert it into the Zweig museum that activists have long desired. For now, the property waits for a buyer wealthy enough to want it—and perhaps bold enough to finish what Porsche started.
Citações Notáveis
It cannot be that public land is being used for real estate speculation. This is about equal rights for all.— Ingeborg Haller, Salzburg Greens
Romantic and impractical, inaccessible to cars, only reachable by climbing more than a hundred steps.— Stefan Zweig, describing the villa in his memoirs
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did this tunnel matter so much to people? It's private infrastructure on private land.
Because it wasn't really about the tunnel. It was about what the tunnel meant—a man so wealthy he could literally avoid the city itself, while ordinary people were being evicted for rent increases. And it was happening on the house of a writer who was driven out by fascism.
So the Stefan Zweig connection was essential to the anger?
It crystallized it. Zweig had written that the house's beauty was that it was unreachable by car. Porsche's plan to bore through the hill to make it reachable by private tunnel—it felt like a deliberate inversion of everything Zweig valued about the place.
Did Porsche actually say why he was selling?
No. His people called it an "envy-driven debate" and suggested he and his wife couldn't have lived there comfortably anyway. But the timing tells you something. The protests happened. Then he sold.
And now the tunnel permission is being marketed as a feature?
Yes. The estate agents are selling the tunnel as a luxury amenity to the next buyer. The permission is worth real money—it's already inflated the property's value. The Greens are furious about that.
So the city enabled the speculation by approving the tunnel in the first place?
That's their argument. Public approval of private infrastructure that made the property more valuable. And now the city can't afford to buy it back to preserve it as a museum.