Antoine I de Croÿ demolished the medieval castle and started works to build the current château in 1455 on the site, of which he destroyed all but one tower.

Charles III of Croy was the 4th and last duke, and after his death in 1612 without issue, the château passed to the German House of Arenberg into which his sister had married, and remained in that family until the First World War.

Even before the First World War, the 8th duke of Arenberg wanted to sell the château and its grounds to the old Catholic University of Leuven, for a reasonable price.

The château and park were seized by the Belgian Government on the outbreak of, and then after the war, since the Arenberg family was considered to be German or Austrian due to their close Habsburg connection, monarchs of Austria-Hungary.

The château itself is the main building of the Faculty of Engineering and houses lecture rooms and studios for the Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Urban Planning, including the Post-Graduate Centre Human Settlements and the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (named after Raymond M. Lemaire).