The castle site is situated to the north of, and above, the Ulmbach Reservoir in the Hessian county of Lahn-Dill-Kreis.

Many secondary sources deduce that the castle was first built around 1250 by the brothers, Werner and Kraft of Lichtenstein.

Like Greifenstein, Lichtenstein was captured and destroyed in 1298 by Counts John of Nassau (died 1328) and Henry of Solms-Burgsolms (died c. 1313) along with troops of the Wetterau imperial cities, because the Greifensteins and Lichtensteins had aligned themselves with the counter-king, Albert of Habsburg and against King Adolphus of Nassau,[1] and because they, at least in the eyes of the Nassaus and Solmses, had acted like robber barons.

Kraft sold the castle hill together with its ruins and the rest of the estate to Count John of Nassau-Hadamar (died 1365).

John II of Solms-Burgsolms, known as "Springsleben" (died 1405) who, since the destruction of his own castle in Burgsolms in 1384 by the Wetterau federation of the imperial cities of Wetzlar, Friedberg and Gelnhausen resided at the rebuilt Greifenstein Castle, and his son, John III (died 1415), the last of the line of Solms-Burgsolms, acquired it in March 1395 from Count Philip I of Nassau-Saarbrücken-Weilburg together with other estates, which Philip had bought in 1363 from Kraft of Rodenhausen and his wife, Irmgard of Lichtenstein.