Schloss Lieser: A Historicist Castle and Wine Estate in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page15 sections
History
Schloss Lieser is a historicist castle in Lieser, Germany, built in the late nineteenth century as the family residence of the industrialist Eduard Puricelli. Historicism was an architectural approach that drew on earlier styles, and the castle’s first phase, constructed from 1884 to 1887, adopted Neo-Renaissance forms, a revival of Renaissance architecture. The building stands on the site of a 1710 church estate building or former Electoral Trier estate courtyard and later became the residence associated with the Schorlemer-Lieser family.
Puricelli and the first building phase
Eduard Puricelli’s wealth came from the gas industry and industrial investments. He co-owned a smelting company with branches in Trier and Rheinböllen and was active in the Conservative Party of Prussia. In 1867 he was elected to the German Reichstag, the parliament of the German Empire, for the Rhine Province. After the Franco-Prussian War, the conflict of 1870–1871 that led to the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire, Puricelli supported that annexation, probably chiefly for economic reasons.
The Frankfurt architect Heinrich Theodor Schmidt designed the older part of Schloss Lieser and supervised its construction. The residence was built on the Moselle in the wine village of Lieser, near Bernkastel-Kues and opposite Mülheim. Its location connected a substantial industrial household with an established agricultural and winemaking landscape.
The Schorlemer-Lieser residence
Puricelli’s daughter Maria married the Prussian administrative official Clemens Freiherr von Schorlemer-Lieser in 1880. She inherited the castle in 1895, and Clemens’s name became part of the property’s name. During the family’s tenure, a wine-pressing facility served the estate’s own wines, linking the residential complex to its agricultural holdings.
Clemens von Schorlemer-Lieser moved to Koblenz in 1905 after becoming Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province, the senior administrative office for the province. The residence was then extensively remodelled and enlarged. The resulting complex joined the earlier Neo-Renaissance building to a somewhat smaller Art Nouveau section. Art Nouveau was a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century style known for flowing lines and integrated ornament. The extension is dated variously to 1895 or to 1904–1906, while its three-pavilion arrangement created a new architectural composition around the older house.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 to 1918, valued Clemens von Schorlemer-Lieser and visited Schloss Lieser in 1906, 1911, and 1913. Crown Prince Wilhelm and Prince Oskar also stayed there several times. The castle therefore served not only as a family residence but also as a setting for important political and social connections.
Estate, vineyards, and changing use
The castle’s vineyards covered 8.5 hectares before they were sold several times during the 1970s. These sales interrupted the estate’s older winemaking tradition. Thomas Haag reorganized the winery from 1992 and purchased it in 1997, after which winemaking resumed with modern equipment. The vineyards include Juffer and Juffer Sonnenuhr in Brauneberg, Himmelreich in Graach, and Niederberg-Helden and Schlossberg in Lieser. They are planted exclusively with Riesling, and sweet predicate wines, made from grapes with high natural sugar concentration, are a specialty. The estate belongs to the Association of German Predicate Wine Estates.
In 1981 the municipality of Lieser purchased the deteriorated estate from the Schorlemer-Lieser family for 600,000 German marks. The last resident was the widowed Baroness Marliese von Schorlemer-Lieser. The castle stood vacant for more than ten years and was used once a year for a Whitsun castle festival. It has been under monument protection since 1981 and remains one of Lieser’s principal landmarks, together with the parish church of Saint Peter.
Restoration and hotel conversion
An investor from Bad Salzuflen bought the castle in February 2001 for two million euros. The Killaars family acquired it in 2007 and carried out more than a decade of renovation and conversion work. A planned opening in 2016 did not take place because an operator could not initially be found, and the property was offered for sale again.
The Dutch Odyssey Hotel Group later became the operator under the Autograph Collection brand. The hotel opened in summer 2019, and the property is associated with Marriott International. The restoration and conversion secured and renewed the historic building fabric. Schloss Lieser and its garden also served as filming locations for the 1953 film Moselfahrt aus Liebeskummer.
Remains
Schloss Lieser extends approximately from east to west between the Moselle riverside road and the Lieser mountain. Its rooms on the different floors are arranged along a central corridor, a plan compared with English country houses. The complex combines an older section on the right when viewed from the Moselle with a slightly smaller extension. Similar materials give the two phases a largely unified exterior, while their stylistic differences appear in details of form and decoration.
Exterior and construction
Neo-Renaissance facade
The older section is designed in the Neo-Renaissance style and presents a varied exterior of bays, gables, towers, and German forms inspired by the late Renaissance. A tower protects the main entrance and is supported by two free-standing granite columns. On the left side of the main facade, a large two-storey avant-corps, or projecting section of the facade, extends outward. Reliefs and images on the main facade idealize industry and agriculture.
The ground floor uses reddish sandstone masonry, while slate stone typical of the region forms the upper storeys. Udelfanger sandstone surrounds the upper-floor windows, and Burgpreppacher sandstone was used for columns and supports. The roof is covered with slate from the Cauber Erbstollen quarries. The unusually high ground floor was fitted mainly with service, storage, economic, and wine-bottling rooms. This arrangement reduced flood damage from the then-unchannelled Moselle, while later channels, dams, and embankments reduced the severity of flooding.
Art Nouveau extension
The later section has an Art Nouveau character and forms part of a three-pavilion composition. Its central pavilion included a winter garden, while a three-sided projecting structure stood before the central axis. A concrete tower followed the entrance to the adjoining building, and one of the extension’s two staircases has an Art Nouveau railing. The extension’s date is placed either in 1895 or in 1904–1906, reflecting the two periods associated with the enlargement.
Interior rooms and circulation
Stair hall and central corridor
A central stair hall connects the building’s corridor system. The staircase is made of Trier sandstone and has wrought-iron railings that are partly gilded. Large landscapes and architectural scenes of the Moselle region by the Frankfurt painter Karl Julius Grätz decorate the stairwell. Its windows contain lead glazing, in which small pieces of glass are joined by lead strips, with four painted medallions by Binsfeld and Janssen of Trier.
Historic furnishings and fittings include lead-glazed windows, tiled stoves, and elaborate door fittings. The Stuttgart architects Epple and Ege designed the carpentry, furniture, and other equipment details. M. Armbruster of Frankfurt produced the construction locks and ornamental metalwork.
Beletage reception rooms
The first upper floor is the representative Beletage, the principal floor of a large residence, normally reserved for formal rooms and elaborate decoration. Its central octagonal ballroom opens directly from the main staircase and contains wood panelling, sculptural work, and a painted ceiling. Light Burgpreppacher sandstone appears in the hall’s pillars, sculptural elements, and panelling.
The floor also contains a workroom, reception room, large dining room panelled in pitch pine and oak, smaller everyday dining room, billiard room, garden rooms, guest rooms, and kitchen. The principal dining room has a richly carved wooden ceiling and decorated door frames. These rooms express the formal residential role of the castle and preserve the range of spaces required by a large household.
Chapel and sculpture
A chapel of approximately 19 square metres occupies the eastern part of the complex. It is described as a separate structure connected to the Beletage. Its elaborately patterned tiled floor was produced in Mettlach by Villeroy and Boch from the architect’s plans. Karl Julius Grätz painted the wall scenes, Binsfeld and Janssen created the stained-glass work, and Peter Fuchs made the saint statues.
Near the chapel, at the eastern corner of the complex, stands an over-life-size Madonna by Peter Fuchs. A sculpture formerly placed on the terrace portrays the owner’s wife in old German dress, holding keys and a wallet. Its imagery has an allegorical meaning. The chapel, religious sculpture, and decorative program form a distinct group within the castle’s residential architecture.
Private upper floor
The second upper floor contained the family’s private rooms, including living rooms, bedrooms, private guest rooms, and servants’ rooms. It also included a room with a large marble table and marble fireplace. The fireplace’s copper plate is an artwork by Hubert Salentin of Düsseldorf.
Estate buildings and grounds
A separate building housed the powerful wine press used for the estate’s own wines. The associated vineyards once extended across 8.5 hectares and were later sold during the 1970s. The wine press and vineyard holdings formed the agricultural part of the estate, complementing the castle’s domestic and representative rooms.
The garden belongs to the historic setting of Schloss Lieser and was included in the later film use of the property. During the hotel conversion, one of the area’s exceptionally large sequoias was felled to make way for an underground parking garage. The intervention formed part of the modern adaptation of the estate while the principal historic building fabric and its restored interiors were retained.
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