On the site of the former Chernel or Festetics Palace, in the early 1700s, there were two smaller houses owned by the Count Nádasdy family. They were united by József Kelcz, lawyer of the Transdanubian District Court and later adviser to the royal chancellery, who had the buildings rebuilt in the late Baroque-Rococo style in 1766. Count Imre Festetics, who had given up military service after a serious injury, bought the complex in 1802. Today he is known as the father of the science of genetics.
The Chernel family acquired the building through marriage and owned it until nationalization. The street was named after the historian Kálmán Chernel, and his son, the ornithologist István Chernel, finished his career as an ornithologist and head of the Hungarian Ornithological Centre.
After nationalization, the Chernel descendants settled in Germany, and the building was converted into emergency housing for the local authorities. The building was renovated in 2018, during which archaeologists discovered a valuable 18th-century ceiling fresco in the salon. The monumental reconstruction was carried out in line with the new function. The former palace is maintained by the Institute of Advanced Studies of Kőszeg and is home to the Hankiss Archives and a library with a social science collection.