Historic House
Most visitors to Salzburg picture the wrong building when they think of the Von Trapp family. The actual home, Villa Trapp in the Aigen district, looks nothing like what the 1965 film suggests.
The family lived at Villa Trapp from 1922 until they left Austria in March 1938. Georg von Trapp had purchased the 1863 villa after the death of his first wife. The children from that marriage grew up here. Maria von Trapp arrived as a tutor in 1926 and married Georg the following year. The family’s musical reputation was built during these years: they won a national competition in 1936 and began touring Austria and neighbouring countries.
The film’s famous Von Trapp villa, with its Baroque lake facade reflected in still water, is Schloss Leopoldskron, about two kilometres away. That palace was used for exterior shots only. The interior ballroom scenes were filmed on a Hollywood set built to resemble Leopoldskron’s Venetian Room. The Trapp family never lived there.
Villa Trapp itself was built in 1863 and shows it. A handsome late-19th-century residence with cream facade and a large private garden, it sits quietly in the Aigen suburb without announcing itself. After the Anschluss, the Nazis repurposed it. After 1945 it passed through various owners and eventually became the guesthouse it is today.
The adjacent Sound of Music World museum, opened in 2018, tells the family’s actual story with original documents and photographs, and a directness that the film tourism circuit rarely offers. If you have an hour for this part of Salzburg, spend half of it there.
People
educator1913 - 2010
Eldest daughter of Georg von Trapp and the eldest of the seven children whose story inspired The Sound of Music. Her memoir Memories Before and After The Sound of Music (2003) is the most detailed first-hand account of the family's Salzburg years. She lived to 97.
official1880 - 1947
The real Captain von Trapp. Austro-Hungarian naval commander who lived in Salzburg at Villa Trapp in Aigen. His family's flight from Austria after the 1938 Anschluss is the story behind The Sound of Music. The family eventually settled in Stowe, Vermont.
educator1905 - 1987
The real Maria. A novice at Nonnberg Abbey before marrying widowed naval officer Georg von Trapp, Maria became world famous through the 1959 musical The Sound of Music and the 1965 film. Her life and the filming locations in and around Salzburg draw millions of tourists to the city each year.
