The history of the estate surrounding Fehérvárcsurgó stately home dates back to the 17^th century. In 1690, the Hochburg became the owners of Csurgó, followed by the Berényi and Perényi families. In 1834, Baron Imre Perényi mortgaged the estate to Count György Károlyi, who wished to acquire a residence in the western part of Hungary and a few years later acquired full ownership.

Construction of the present mansion began in 1844 on the site of a former manor house, in neoclassical style according to the plans by the Austrian architect Heinrich Koch, who had also supervised the restructuring of the Károlyi Palace in Budapest. Koch was represented on site by the young Miklós Ybl, who would go on to become the great Hungarian architect of the 19th century, distinguished among other things by the construction of the Budapest Opera House. At Csurgó, Ybl was only responsible for the technical supervision of the works, but he personally designed the small interior staircase with overhead lighting, which still bears his name today.

Prior to the 1844 reconstruction, the original building - demolished with the exception of the cellar - was Baroque, in the shape of an "L". On the first floor, there were sixteen bedrooms and a kitchen, with nine rooms for the domestic staff, and five bedrooms upstairs. Heating was provided by tiled stoves. Descriptions of the time already mention a chapel. It is likely that this construction predates 1768, and was carried out by mason Antal Feigs on behalf of Baron Perényi.

The new U-shaped building comprises a central body with a single storey, flanked by two colonnaded wings, initially without storeys. At the ends of the wings are two pavilions, with a chapel in the north pavilion. The central part and the wings surround a “cour d’honneur”, in the center of which is a pool.

After Count György Károlyi's death in 1877, his youngest son Viktor inherited the estate. On Viktor's untimely death in 1888, the estate reverted to his elder brother Gyula. The latter's two sons, Mihály (1875-1955) and József (1884-1934), shared his inheritance: Mihály received the town palace, and József received Csurgó. The last major reconstruction of the stately home took place in 1910. The wings and tower were restructured, and the courtyard facade was given its present half-moon shape, behind which an elliptical library was created on the upper floor, topped by a reinforced concrete dome - one of the first uses of this material in Hungary. It was at this time that "modern comforts" such as central heating, electricity and telephone were introduced into the château.

Documents dating from 1883 mention the park surrounding the château as a "pleasure garden". It was also Count József Károlyi who, in the early 1900s, commissioned the Hungarian landscape gardener János Hein - an award-winner at the 1897 Paris Universal Exhibition - to design two areas: a "pleasure garden" in keeping with the style of the château, and a "landscape garden" near a wooded area. A wide variety of tree species (pines, chestnuts, larches, yews, hazels, hornbeams, ashes, etc.) were planted over an area of around 50 hectares. The Károlyi family lived in the château regularly until the Second World War. They didn't leave until the autumn of 1944, as the front line approached. Occupied in early 1945 by the SS "Totenkopf" division, then by the Soviet army, who turned it into a military hospital, all its furnishings were stolen or destroyed. After the war, all the family's properties were confiscated and nationalized. Count István Károlyi (1920-2009), József's only son, left Hungary with his family in 1947 to settle in France. In 1946, the château was attributed to the Compagnie du Gaz, which used it as a vacation home for its staff. Shortly afterwards, it housed Greek children brought over by Communist partisans in 1948 following the civil war. In 1955, it was transformed into an orphanage for abandoned Hungarian children until 1979, when, due to lack of maintenance, it was emptied and abandoned. The fate of this building, heavily affected by successive changes of function, is similar to that of many other Hungarian historic monuments: despite its classification in the highest category in the early 1950s and some conservation work in the mid-1980s, the building and its park rapidly deteriorated.

The situation began to change for the better in 1993, when its management was entrusted to the MÁG, a public institution under the auspices of the National Office for the Protection of Historic Monuments. At the initiative of the Joseph Károlyi Foundation, created by István's son György with his spouse Angelica in 1994, the castle was recognized as suitable for becoming a Cultural Meeting Center affiliated to the European Network of such Centers (www.accr-europe.org). A program of reconstruction and cultural enhancement of the stately home and its grounds was launched in 1997, in collaboration with MÁG.  In 2001, the Károlyi family, personally committed to the castle's restoration, signed a 99-year long lease with the Hungarian state. The project developed by the Foundation aims to create a Cultural Meeting Center on the site, following a principle born in France, and faithful to the spirit of the builder, Count György Károlyi (1802-1877) - a key figure in Hungary's "reform era" at the beginning of the 19th century, and a personal friend of Count István Széchenyi, "the greatest of Hungarians" - who expressed the wish to work actively towards the opening-up and development of Hungary.

His grandson, Count József Károlyi, a Hungarian politician, member of the Chamber of Magnates, then Member of Parliament, Governor of the County of Fejér between 1917 and 1921, Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, was already a fervent advocate of Hungary's opening up to Europe. It was in Fehérvárcsurgó that he wrote his "Memoirs of Madeira", recounting the last days of King Charles IV, whose death he witnessed in 1922 on the island of Madeira.

Inspired by this family history, the Joseph Károlyi Foundation's aim is to promote Hungary's opening to Europe, through the creation of the Fehérvárcsurgó Cultural Meeting Centre, which has three aims:

- provide documentation, research and training tools on the history of Europe in general and Hungary in particular, through the conservation of library and archive collections.

- organize and host residential and non-residential seminars and conferences

- promote cultural tourism in a historic monument open to the public.

The Documentation Center includes François Fejtő's working library (books, periodicals, press files), complemented by the Thomas Schreiber Fund and the extensive library and documentary holdings of genealogist and heraldist Szabolcs de Vajay, housed in the large central library. Added to this is an important collection of almost 50,000 historical postcards, showing the appearance of more than 3,000 Hungarian localities throughout the Carpathian Basin. In 1995, this project was awarded the World Decade for Cultural Development label by UNESCO, then, on completion of the work in 2011, the distinction of "best restoration project" awarded by the Hungarian public institution managing state property.

 In 2014, restoration work began on the outbuildings, including the former laundry, which has been converted into a tourist information center specializing in parks and gardens. The exterior restoration of the former large stable was completed in 2023, with the installation of an interactive exhibition dedicated to the Károlyi family and music. The residential facilities include 25 upper-level rooms and spacious salons for conferences, exhibitions, concerts, banquets and receptions. The historic rooms open to visitors were refurbished in 2017. After the first phase of the park's restoration in 2008, with the re-watering of the dried-up lake and the reconstitution of the paths and vistas, a new botanical trail project was launched and the entire park was admitted in 2023 to the European Historic Garden Route (EHGR) under the aegis of the Council of Europe.