The Historyof the house
A long storybegins
Built around 1884 by great-great-grandfather Junk as the family's town house, the house (and the family) had an eventful history following the Great Depression and two world wars.
The builder Junk was a building councilor, master builder, insurance expert and entrepreneur. The area of today's 3rd district of Vienna was dominated by gardens and fields. The house, together with a second building in what is now Erdbergstraße, served as the company and family headquarters. The garden was also used as an ice-skating area in winter and as a gym in summer.
The global economic crisis hit the family hard and Junk's great-great-grandfather took his own life. Parts of the property were sold and the building fell into disrepair.
The Second World War again brought hard economic times and destruction (after the war, electricity, water and gas were cut off and all the windows were destroyed by pressure waves from nearby bombing).
In the years after the war, the house was repaired in a makeshift manner with the simplest of means.
It was only in the 1970s that Dipl.-Ing. Roland Spieß - the next generation but one - succeeded in regaining control of the entire house, which had fallen into a partly desolate state in the meantime.
The following decades from 1980 onwards were used to renovate, restore, modernize and extend the building piece by piece - also with painstaking and energetic personal effort in view of the financial possibilities - and to strengthen the building's foundations.
During this time - as well as since the construction of the building and to this day - part of the building has been used as a family residence.
This led to the opening of the SPIESS & SPIESS B&B in 2002, run by Roland and Ulrike Spieß, with just 7 rooms at the time - the egg dishes prepared by Roland Spieß himself became very popular with guests.
At the time, the business was run as a secondary business (alongside a respected property management company) primarily out of passion.
Over the years, other areas of the house were incorporated into the business and new rooms were created.
Dipl. Ing. Jean-Philipp Spieß has been running the hotel together with his wife Dr. Nadine Spieß since 2012. While Jean-Philipp is responsible for the management of the company and the planning of upcoming renovations, Nadine is the visionary who takes care of the design and further development of the hotel. This was still a side business alongside the continued property management, which was only given up in 2018 in order to be able to devote oneself entirely to the hotel.
Warand decline
The years of war had left their mark, although the house had been spared from bombing. However, shelling during the final battles in Vienna, as well as vibrations from nearby bomb hits and from the anti-aircraft artillery in nearby Arenberg Park, left traces that were visible long after the war. The vibrations had damaged the old stoneware sewer pipes in particular, causing moisture to seep into the foundations over many years. The moisture had seeped up through the masonry to the mezzanine floor.
The sewer damage, poor state of maintenance, and the ravages of time and weathering have led to the building falling further into a desolate state. Moisture from the leaking sewer and uninsulated foundations penetrated into the earth cellar and further damaged the building.
A new era begins
In the 1980s, Roland Spieß began to renovate the building from the ground up with great personal and physical effort. The partially buried cellar was painstakingly excavated by hand, the sewage pipes were renewed, the foundations reinforced and preparations made for an extension to the building. This was followed by an extension to the courtyard and the installation of garages in the mid-1990s.
Underground (tube) construction work in the 80s
In the 1980s, there was another major construction site right on our doorstep - the subway was being built! The entire Hainburger Straße was excavated in open construction for a long time.
The foundations were laid for modern public transport links.
The opening of the first stretch of the U3 underground line in 1991 completed the perfect connection to local public transport with a station just 100 meters from the building.
Extension and attic conversion
Finally, in the 1990s, the decision was made to extend the building and the roof and to use this new part as a bed and breakfast, fulfilling a long-cherished dream of Roland Spieß, as hospitality had been rooted in the family for decades (inn in Sievering, an aunt's guesthouse, a restaurant in Paris on the occasion of the World Exhibition, ...).
At the turn of the millennium, the time had finally come to add a storey to the building and extend the attic, laying the foundations for the hotel.
After completion of the attic extension, the façade (which had become pitch black due to air pollution in the first half of the 20th century) was finally renovated.
The interior work and furnishings followed and in 2002 the time had come - the SPIESS & SPIESS bed and breakfast was opened - with 7 rooms run by Roland Spieß as a passionate sideline.
Additon of the garden building
In 2010 - 2011, a new construction site was opened in the garden. Finally, in 2013, the garden building was completed. In a modern building with large windows facing the garden, in keeping with the style of the existing building, 8 new rooms and suites were created, as well as a basement that would later be converted into a sauna and meeting/yoga room.
The hotel had thus reached its current size of 23 rooms.
Renovations, conversions and modernizations continue to ensure that the house and the hotel move with the times, but always remain an authentic, stylish and homely testimony to its history.
Construction of the Sauna- & Yoga Area
The installation of a modern sauna facility in the basement of the courtyard building in 2019 offers guests of the hotel (and day guests on request) a wonderfully relaxing experience after a busy day in the city.
A large room that can also be used as a seminar room or event space is now primarily used for yoga. The modern, yet friendly and pleasant design of the room offers a relaxing and grounded ambience for active relaxation and concentration. Nadine Spieß offers guided yoga classes here for both in-house guests and external visitors.
Eco certificationand garden reshaping
In 2021, the decision will be made to seek certification under the Austrian Ecolabel.
Among many other measures, the most visible one is the transformation of the garden from a pure lawn into a green space designed close to nature, which aims to increase the diversity of fauna and flora, improve the microclimate and be a place to linger.
