“In 1909, my wife gracefully decided to come back to me and take over the reins of my household,” wrote Karl von Strahl (1850–1929), the owner of Stara Loka Manor in his memoirs in 1922. His wife Mimi (Maria Aloisia) von Lehmann (1854–1929) had left her husband soon after their wedding in January 1886 and lived away from his table and bed for twenty-three years. As Strahl continued in his memoirs, Mimi spent most of those years among the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Jarosław, now in southern Poland, where she taught music and German literature. The reasons for withdrawing and then returning to her husband after almost two and a half decades are not known. What can be ascertained is that, immediately upon her return, she indeed became the veritable lady of the manor and embarked on its interior and exterior reconstruction. They installed hardwood flooring in the rooms on the third floor, set up new stoves and a fireplace, and whitewashed all the halls and rooms. In addition, they renovated the external façade and repainted all the windows and doors. Almost certainly, it was on the same occasion that the heraldic plaque with the arms of alliance of Karl von Strahl and Mimi von Lehmann was installed above the Baroque entrance on the eastern façade of the manor. Strahl’s arms are of particular interest as a relatively new noble coat of arms. His noble title raised many doubts and uncertainties, particularly in anticipation of the marriage between Karl’s father Eduard and Cecilia von Pettenegg. Eduard, unable to demonstrate his noble descent, asked his future father-in-law to intercede on his behalf for a renewed ennoblement, which was first granted to him by Alois Prince of Liechtenstein in 1848 and twenty-five years later (in 1873) by Emperor Franz Joseph, who also conferred upon him hereditary Austrian knighthood. On that same occasion, his coat of arms was confirmed. It can still be seen on Stara Loka Manor.
The Lehmann coat of arms featuring an owl dates back to 1780, when Josef Lehmann (the great-grandfather of Strahl’s wife Mimi), a gubernial councilor and bank administrator, was elevated to the rank of nobility.

Sources:
Polec, Janko: Spominu Edvarda in Karla Strahla. In: Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino 10, 1930, pp. 43–210.
Preinfalk, Miha: Plemiške rodbine na Slovenskem, 18. stoletje; Part 1: Od Andriolija do Zorna. Ljubljana: Viharnik, 2013, pp. 83-90.
Rugále, Mariano & Preinfalk, Miha: Blagoslovljeni in prekleti. Part 1: Plemiške rodbine 19. in 20. stoletja na Slovenskem. Ljubljana: Viharnik, 2013, pp. 174–178.