Villa de Hügel

Yesterday Ginette took me to visit Villa de Hügel in Essen. It's a mansion that belonged to the Krupp family. It was built by Alfred Krupp in 1873. The Krupps were a family of industrialists who were very prominent for their steel production. The mansion was their home as well as a representation of their industry. The home passed down through several generations. During WWII, it was under Bertha Krupp who married Alfred von Bohlen und Halbach. Alfred allied with Hitler (probably because a man with his fame had no chance of keeping it if he wasn't part of the SS). You know Big Bertha? Yeah that was named after Bertha Krupp. The mansion was extremely modern for the time. It had the most up-to-date heating system. It was similar to those used today. This was EXTREMELY modern for the time. I'm posting pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation. The interior is mostly wood. It's a little dark for my taste. But the libraries are really nice... unfortunately they aren't completely full of books. But I dream of having a library like that someday. =) What I like most is the upper level with a railing in the library. The mansion consists of two "houses" that are connected with indoor passageways on two levels. The smaller house is a museum with displays history of the Krupp family. The larger house was where the family lived and has original furnishings.

The rooms on the main floors are very large. But in the upper level, the bedrooms and living space are rather small. The point of the house was to hold up their reputation. The entrance and dance halls are all on the first floor. On the second floor are more guest areas as well as a huge living room with a dome ceiling. The ceiling is made of many windows, so to save from always having to clean them, they built another area with a roof and lots of vertical windows above the dome. This protected the ceiling from the elements. While we were walking around the grounds I noticed this extra area with many windows and was really interested to know what it was. Turns out it has no usable space. What a waste of an amazing location and so many windows. For future reference, I would never do that. It should be an astronomy area or something cool like that.

The Villa sits on a very large acreage. In the days of industry, it was much larger with beautiful gardens and many houses for workers. The Krupps also built many houses in Essen for their workers. They even provided health insurance for their employees. This was very rare at the time. The mansion sits on the Ruhr River and Lake Baldeney. They had large private boat to take out on the lake.

After visiting Villa Hügel, we went to the lake and found Schloß Baldeney. It's a small castle right on the lake that's for sale for €4 million. It has it's own chapel and everything. I've been saying this whole time that I want to buy a castle while I'm here. This would definitely be a nice one. It needs a lot of work, but Dad could run the parish and Mom volunteered to be the grounds keeper. When I'm an architect I could manage the renovations. It sounds like a splendid idea to me. ;)

On our way home we drove by a HUGE Catholic church in Essen, so we stopped and looked around. Construction of this church began in 1250. It's amazing what kind of structures they could make before they had modern technology.

Ginette is really interested in architecture as well, so we talk about dream homes and renovation ideas. It's a lot of fun! We've both decided that a dream home is nothing without amazing gardens, so they landscaping is always included in our brainstorming. =)