The ruins are situated at 1,040.8 m above sea level (NN) on a twin-topped, rocky ridge in front of the Tannheim Mountains.

The work lasted until 1432, the funding coming from the income of the little barony that surrounded it, which the lord had bequeathed in advance of his death.

At a time when the nobility were waning and the bourgeois classes were in the ascendancy, Frederick of Freyberg clearly wanted to create a symbol of unbroken aristocratic power.

The construction and huge maintenance costs forced his sons, George and Frederick of Freyberg-Eisenberg zu Hohenfreyberg, and their cousin, George of Freyberg-Eisenberg zu Eisenberg, who also owned estates of the Barony of Hohenfreyberg, to sell the castle in 1484 to Archduke Sigmund of Austria; they also lacked a male heir.

The successor to the Archduke, later Emperor Maximilian I, enfeoffed Hohenfreyberg in 1499[1] to Augsburg merchant, Georg Gossembrot, the Pfleger of the nearby Tyrolean castle of Ehrenberg.

In 1502 Gossembrot died and his widow, Radegunda Eggenberger, gave the fief of Hohenfreyberg back to Austria in an agreement dated 9 May 1513.

The Austrian Pfleger was able to ward the rebels off successfully after he had requested reinforcements and soldiers (Kriegsknechte) from Innsbruck.

In 1646, towards the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Austrian outposts of Hohenfreyberg, Eisenberg and Falkenstein were set on fire on the orders of the Tyrolean state government.

The Alp Action Foundation under the patronage of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan enabled the start of the safety work that ended in 2006 for financial reasons.

The aim of these measures was a historically faithful preservation of the state at the start of restoration, additions and larger archaeological intervention was excluded.

The internationally acclaimed "conservation example" is a role model for similarly innovative historical monument projects across Europe.

On the west side of the inner bailey a low artillery hut was built, from which an attacking enemy could be fired upon with light firearms.

This required the demolition of the northern half of the great west residence or palas, whose rubble was distributed to a deputy of a metre in the inner courtyard.

To the north and east the mighty zwinger systems were built with a semi-circular flanking tower in the far northeast.

The conception of this castle element was based on Albrecht Dürer's 1527 tractate, "Some Lessons in Fortifying the City, Palace and Town" ("Ettliche underricht zu befestigung der Stett, Schloß und flecken").