Linderhof is the smallest of King Ludwig II's three palaces and the only one he completed. Enlargement of an inherited hunting lodge began in 1869, and in 1874 Ludwig decided to tear it down and rebuild it on its present site, cladding the wooden exterior in stone. He lived there most of the time from 1876. Total spending from 1863 to 1886 was 8,460,937 marks.
The style is the second Rococo period, with cues from Louis XV's mid-18th-century Rococo, and the Petit Trianon at Versailles was a more direct model. The staircase is a reduced version of the Ambassador's Staircase at Versailles. The article does not name an architect.
The Venus Grotto, built from 1875 to 1877, has an iron frame with canvas walls coated in cement to form stalactites, and 24 dynamos powered colored arc lamps from 1878. The landscape garden covers about 125 acres (50 ha). UNESCO inscribed Linderhof in 2025.
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