About us

Johanna Trojer and daughter Stephanie Fedon. Stephanie works in the Tech industry in London and around the world. I have retained my position as an English teacher at the business college in San Candido, now part-time, so I commute back and forth between the Pustertal valleys in East Tyrol and South Tyrol. I take care of the house and yard, your well-being, and am available if you need anything. I maintain the heating system and all other systems to ensure everything always works and you stay nice and warm in the winter. I also live in the house, in the caretaker's apartment in the attic, so I'm always there when needed. When Stephanie is there, she actively helps out, including with hay and wood work. She's particularly good at splitting and chopping firewood. We love spending our free time outdoors, skiing, hiking, and cycling. Stephanie is passionate about horseback riding. In this farm folder, we've compiled all the useful information for your stay with us at Heinfelsberg.

Johanna and Stephanie, really hope to be able to welcome you soon!

A little bit of history...

In the years before the last pastor of Kalkstein in the remotest part of the Villgraten Valley, Bergmann Johann, my maternal grandmother's cousin, died in 1991, he was very worried about whether his old, dilapidated farm, which was in dire need of renovation, would ever find a successor.

The fields are steep and barren, the forests are inaccessible with modern machinery, the barn is no longer suitable for animal husbandry, and the road leading up is narrow and winding. He told my mother Irma that she had five children (we also grew up on a mountain farm around the corner in San Candido, South Tyrol), one of them would probably be interested in taking care of it and continuing to manage it.

It was very important to him that no one would sell the farm, because he said there would be enough distant relatives interested in it, but only to sell it. My mother gave him this promise not to sell, whereupon he then handed over the little home to her, hoping that his wish would come true. We (my brothers and mother) came here every summer in the following years to mow the fields, harvest the hay, and, of course, eat dumplings in the living room for lunch and have a "marenden" (have a afternoon snack) after our work. Since 2008, I have been living in the house for eight summers and four winters with my daughter Stephanie, when she wasn't at university. Only four winters, not eight, because the water, after constantly freezing, burst the old water pipes in the barn in the fourth winter.

But it allowed me to get to know the farm very well, to analyze cold and warm zones, sunny spots, and snow accumulations in detail, to identify weak spots and even good, even very good spots. At minus two degrees Celsius in the bedroom, our condition was almost like a wellness experience; at minus seven, you can't even turn over in bed, even with the best will in the world, because of the ice-cold pillows.

Over time, I grew fond of the house and farm and made this clear to my mother. For her, this farm was her everything, and her greatest wish was to breathe new life into it, which I was determined to do, just as I was not to sell it. As a result, she handed the farm over to me in 2011, and after years of back and forth, I began the grand adventure of renovating it, which lasted from April 2018 until just before the end of 2020.

Farm's location, history and people

Our listed mountain farmhouse or country house is located on a sunny slope in the heart of the Pustertal Valley at 1,300 meters above Heinfels Castle, in the municipality of Heinfels, which has a population of approximately 1,000. The farmhouse is part of a farm complex consisting of three farms. The heavenly view from the farmhouse is always the same, but the light is different, unique, every moment.

The eastern half of the house – one floor lower in the Middle Ages – was likely the first farmhouse ever built on this slope, as confirmed by the first documented mention in 1199. The old Rachkuchl (salt kitchen) and the old bacon or granary cellar, where the bathtub now stands, as well as the green room on the upper floor, are among the first rooms built in the house. The western half of the house was added later, probably in the early 19th century. In recent centuries, up to three families have lived in this house. For this reason, there are two cellars, two kitchens, and two living rooms.

The great-great-grandfather of my great-uncle, Pastor Johann Bergmann, my great-great-great-grandfather, was also named Johann Bergmann and was born on December 28, 1736. He married Maria Roflerin from Sillianberg in 1773 and died in 1813 "of old age," as can be read in his family tree, after the death of his wife in 1805, who died of "dropsy." The surname Bergmann thus remained associated with this farm for more than 250 years.

At that time, the Mittereggerschneiderhof was called Rainerhof, after the hamlet of Rain, the name still used today for the farm complex and its surroundings on this slope. In the mid-19th century, the Sillian parish register mentions the name "zu Rain-Mittereggen" (to Rain-Mittereggen), when Pastor Bergmann's grandfather, Alois, a farmer and master tailor, married Katharina Obristhofer. Because of his profession as a tailor, this was incorporated into the farm's name, according to the archives in the year ... They had two children, one of whom died on the day of his birth (May 11, 1853). Their son, Johann Bergmann zu Peterer, Mittereggen in Hinterheimfels, the pastor's father, was born on June 2, 1859, and married Johanna Lusser, born in 1872, daughter of Anton and Maria Prugger. They had a total of five children.

In the 1960s, the road up from the valley was built. Until then, there was only a now overgrown footpath, also called the Kirchensteig (church path), since people only went down to the valley on Sundays to attend Holy Mass. (Photo: Heinfelsberg, 1960s, without a road) During the same years, the Höfl received electricity and later even a telephone connection. The outhouse remained in use until the early 2000s, as did the "Seachte" (sinkhole), still preserved in the kitchen corner of the Rachkuchl (kitchen kitchen), where the priest's then very elderly sisters washed sheets with ash until the 1990s. However, they couldn't afford a radio or television; the ORF broadcast was "too expensive," as I was told. Their iron frugality did have one major advantage, however, because the old building structure was thus preserved and can be experienced for posterity. We are very proud to have received only the best reviews on TrustYou, Google, and other sites, and will continue to strive to do our best. In 2025, we will become a member of the Farm Holidays association and are now pleased to be able to identify ourselves as a country farm, both digitally and in print.