Today, it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Upper Middle Rhine Valley.

The original castle at Stolzenfels was built as a fortification by the Prince-Bishop of Trier, then Arnold II.

Frederick William had traveled along the Rhine in 1815, the year when the Congress of Vienna awarded several Princedoms in the area to Prussia, and had been fascinated by the beauty, romance and history of the region.

On 14 September of that year, Frederick Wiliam, since 1840 King of Prussia, inaugurated his new summer residence in a great celebration with a torchlight procession and medieval costumes.

[citation needed] Among those who had worked on the designs for the palace and the gardens were Johann Claudius von Lassaulx [de], Karl Friedrich Schinkel (draft), Friedrich August Stüler (building) and Peter Joseph Lenné (garden).