The Sen­nin­gen Cas­tle today has an impor­tant rep­u­ta­tion as an inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence centre.

The “Lam­ort-Mill” first and last paper mill of the Nieder­an­ven community.

Dur­ing the last cen­turies this his­tor­i­cal site, formed by a main build­ing with two side wings attached wit­nessed a very bold past. The ori­gin of its his­to­ry is marked by the con­struc­tion of a paper mill in Sen­nin­gen on the prop­er­ty of the Wiltheim Clan, prob­a­bly at the end of the 17^th cen­tu­ry. Monks con­struct­ed this fac­to­ry because of their grow­ing need in paper.
Across the way of the paper fac­to­ry, which had 3 adja­cent paper mills, stood anoth­er build­ing, rep­re­sent­ing the fac­to­ry owner’s lodg­ing and the dwelling for the work­ers and the cat­tle. What had prob­a­bly been the deci­sive fact to choose this site for the fac­to­ry was the steep slope of the Sen­ninger brook, run­ning down the val­ley and pow­er­ing sev­er­al mills in the neighbourhood.

The owners of the mills

The fate of the Sen­nin­gen mill is tight­ly linked with sev­er­al fam­i­ly clans, active in paper fab­ri­ca­tion, such as Pierre Bour­geois (1690–1783), a French immi­grant. He was the one who ordered and lead the enlarge­ment of the paper mill and who ren­o­vat­ed the whole com­plex after the con­fla­gra­tion in the year 1750. The two build­ings, burnt down to the ground had been recon­struct­ed and the res­i­den­tial house erect­ed in the clas­si­cal style.

Jacques Lam­ort (1785–1856) can be con­sid­ered as the most impor­tant own­er of the paper fac­to­ry in Sen­nin­gen. Under the man­age­ment of this active and inno­v­a­tive man, the paper pro­duc­tion reached its max­i­mum. He man­aged sev­er­al mills in the region and mech­a­nised the paper pro­duc­tion. He even ordered to canal­ize the brook of Sen­nin­gen, in order to use the water’s force.

From a mill to a castle

Eco­nom­ic prob­lems and fam­i­ly con­flicts led to the Shut-down of the paper mill in the year 1882. The same year the indus­tri­al Ernest Derveaux bought the pro­duc­tion site. Dur­ing this year the fac­to­ry had been knocked down and with the owner’s house being trans­formed into a cas­tle, the site took the actu­al shape of today. A large pond with a beau­ti­ful foun­tain in the mid­dle had been laid out behind the cas­tle and 2 side wings in a neo-goth­ic style had been added to the main build­ing. The whole site was changed into a  park with attrac­tive veg­e­ta­tion and exot­ic trees.

The Cas­tle of Sen­nin­gen – today the inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence cen­tre in the mid­dle of a charm­ing park .

Between 1940 and 1945 the cas­tle of Sen­nin­gen served to the nazi occu­pa­tions as a con­va­les­cent home to artists. In 1952 the Lux­em­bourg gov­ern­ment used the whole site for mil­i­tary administration.

From 1990 to 1991 more ren­o­va­tions took place and in the frame of the Luxembourg’s Euro­pean Direc­tion, the site had been trans­formed into an inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence cen­tre, also host­ing the nation­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Cen­tre since 1968.