Prince Georg Wilhelm von Hessen-Darmstadt received the Braunshardt estate as a gift from his father Landgrave Ludwig VIII in 1760. The prince commissioned the engineer lieutenant Johann Jakob Hill to build the palace and gardens in the Rococo style. By 1763 it was completed. After the financial ruin of Georg Wilhelm's son Karl Georg, the castle passed into private ownership in 1819. 1865 acquired Grand Duke Ludwig III. the castle for his nephew and successor Ludwig IV. His son Ernst Ludwig, the last Grand Duke, sold it in 1898. The Caritas Association of the Diocese of Mainz, which bought the castle in 1926, used it as a girls' home and to care for the elderly. It was initially managed by Benedictine nuns and finally from 1936 by the Johannesbund in Leutesdorf. In the course of a major conversion and expansion of the palace and its outbuildings, the St. Ludwig chapel with a church tower was built in 1929. During the Second World War, the castle was used as a retirement home for the city of Offenbach. After the end of the war, the Johannesbund took over the institution again. In the 1980s, parts of the AItenheim St. Ludwig were demolished and rebuilt. The Luisen wing, which Baron Helmuth von Maltzahn acquired in 1986, received its present form through extensive restoration work. In 2006, the city of Weiterstadt bought the castle. Since then it has been used for events.