[Eszterház(Esterháza)]
Palace and former settlement in west Hungary in the town now called Fertőd.
The palace and settlement, once part of the village of Süttör and later called Eszterháza, owed its existence to an adjacent hunting area. Today it belongs to the Hungarian town Fertőd near the Austrian border. A palace was built here from 1720 on for Count Nicolaus Esterházy, still a minor, using parts of an earlier building. When he became prince in 1762, he started to transform his domicile into a magnificent residence of the maison de plaisance type. From 1765 he used it again as his permanent dwelling, although he spent several months of the year in Vienna. (He visited Eisenstadt, the administrative centre of his estates sporadically after 1765 and apparently never after 1776.) His vision, accomplished by 1784, included a mostly three-storey main building with a spectacular pair of stair-wings leading from the large ...
