Zug City Council to purchase large lakeside estate for 44 million

Zug’s city parliament will decide on the purchase of the estate near the Theater Casino next.

The approximately 5,500-square-meter Unterer Frauenstein estate directly on Lake Zug is to cost 44 million Swiss francs. The property dates back to 1850 and is listed as a protected historical monument. The City Council has already signed a purchase option agreement based on an independent valuation report. Financing is to come from the city’s own funds. According to a statement, investments of around 10.5 million Swiss francs are planned for the short- and medium-term renovation of the main building, the outbuildings, and the lakeshore area.

“We are expanding public access to the lake in the Casino/Seeliken area and opening a historic garden to everyone,” City Councillor Urs Raschle, head of the Finance Department, is quoted as saying in the statement. “This is therefore about more than just a purchase—it is about safeguarding quality of life and space for the next generation,” City President André Wicki makes clear.

The property was publicly offered for sale in spring 2025. It is owned by a cooperative based in Zug. The City Council is requesting approval from the Grand Municipal Council (GGR) to purchase the property. The city parliament is expected to decide on the matter at its meeting on February 24, 2026. However, the final decision will likely rest with the people of Zug in a referendum in June 2026.

View of the villa from Lake Zug     Photo: Mathias Blattmann, (11. 7. 2025)

Complex Price Determination

The company FSP Fine Swiss Properties (LLC) from Herrliberg was entrusted with the sale. “We specialize in properties like this,” explains real estate broker Robert Ferfecki in response to an inquiry from our newspaper. “What essentially sets us apart from our competitors is that we do not pursue a revenue-driven growth strategy where everything has to happen quickly, but rather an uncompromising quality strategy.”

Price determination for such properties is very complex, as there are only a few truly comparable objects. “The asking price must be plausible and comprehensible.” One cannot simply demand some unrealistic price, because all serious interested parties consult specialists and experts. “With this property, we benefited from information and contacts we gathered during the sales process of the St. Karlshof.”

Equally complex, Ferfecki continues, is the fact that Villa Frauenstein is subject to numerous preservation requirements that must be observed and that limit freedom of action.

The acquisition of this exceptional property has been a topic of discussion for some time: in early September, the individual initiative “The City of Zug purchases the property and makes the park accessible to the public” was submitted. Although the GGR rejected the initiative, it instructed the City Council—via a consultative vote—to continue examining the purchase and to proceed with negotiations.

Purchase Offer Came from the “Apprentice”

The company obtained the mandate to broker the villa through a public tender. “I could imagine that we were chosen because we are not from Zug, are not connected to anyone here, and could therefore act in a completely neutral, independent, and maximally discreet manner,” the broker explains. “In the meantime, we have learned: if two people in Zug know something, it is practically already public.”

The estate belongs to a cooperative made up of several individuals. Since multiple purchase offers were submitted, the cooperative members had to carefully review all aspects and coordinate among themselves. “The villa was in the same hands for around a hundred years, and at one point there was even a right of first refusal in favor of the City, which later expired,” Ferfecki reports. There had always been a close connection to the City of Zug, which is why it was not entirely surprising that it was chosen as the buyer.

What was amusing, he says, was that the City of Zug’s purchase offer was sent from the email account “Lehrling Kanzlei” (apprentice, legal office). “One might have thought that such ‘small transactions’ in Zug are handled by apprentices,” Ferfecki says with a laugh. It is always surprising how complex negotiations with large bodies like the City of Zug can be. “There are numerous points of contact with very different expectations and levels of authority, and a political process is always running in the background. But that also makes the matter very exciting and demanding.”

According to Robert Ferfecki, there are not many villas in Switzerland that cost a mid double-digit million amount. “That automatically places the Zug estate among the most expensive properties we have ever dealt with.” But what matters is not how much a property costs, he says, but that it has unique, refined qualities. “An estate like Villa Frauenstein comes onto the market only once every hundred years.”

[Article originally published in the Zuger Zeitung on 19 December 2025]