Jagdschloss Stern: Frederick William I’s Hunting Lodge in Potsdam
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Prussia
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page13 sections
History
Jagdschloss Stern is an early eighteenth-century hunting lodge in Potsdam, Germany, built for Frederick William I between 1730 and 1732 in the style of a simple Dutch town house. It stood slightly away from the center of a star-shaped network of hunting tracks, between two rays, and took its name from this position. Following the destruction of Potsdam City Palace, it became the oldest surviving palace building in Potsdam.
Creation of the Parforceheide
Frederick William I, King in Prussia from 1713 to 1740, made Potsdam his residence after his accession and developed the land south-east of the city for extensive hunts. From 1725 to 1729, the surrounding hunting ground was laid out as the Parforceheide. It covered about 100 square kilometres and was divided into sixteen sectors by straight forest tracks radiating toward a central meeting point.
This arrangement served par force hunting, a mounted pursuit in which riders, hounds, and horses followed game over long distances until it was exhausted. The flat terrain, sparse woodland, and limited undergrowth suited this form of hunting. Jagdschloss Stern provided a modest lodge for the king during these outings.
A Dutch-inspired royal building
The architect has not been securely identified, and the design may have been based on a plan obtained from Holland. The construction contract was probably awarded to Cornelius van den Bosch, a Dutch-born grenadier and master carpenter. Pierre de Gayette, a captain in the Corps of Engineers and court architect, supervised the work.
The lodge reflected Frederick William I’s practical and frugal outlook. His interest in Dutch engineering, drainage, economical brick construction, and rapid building methods formed part of Brandenburg-Prussia’s longstanding connections with Holland and its Dutch and Dutch-trained specialists. Completed shortly before the first houses of Potsdam’s Dutch Quarter, the building probably served as a model for that larger project.
The lodge was intended for hunting stays. A castellan’s half-timbered house stood a few metres to the south-west, probably dating from the same period, and its occupant also held the right to operate a tavern. A stable completed in 1733 formed part of the associated service complex.
Decline and revival of court hunting
After Frederick the Great succeeded his father in 1740, par force hunting ceased around Potsdam. Frederick rejected hunting as a princely pastime in his treatise Antimachiavell. Frederick William II and Frederick William III likewise showed no interest in reviving the practice. A few driven hunts took place at Stern in 1791, and French soldiers used the lodge as accommodation during the Napoleonic occupation of Prussia.
Prince Carl of Prussia revived par force hunting in 1828, and the practice continued until the 1890s. Hunting events also resumed under Frederick William IV, who had the Hubertusstock hunting lodge built on the edge of the Schorfheide in 1847.
Twentieth-century uses and preservation
After the First World War and the end of the monarchy, the lodge was temporarily rented to artists. In 1927, it was placed under the Prussian Administration of State Palaces and Gardens, known since 1995 as the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.
After the Second World War, the building housed the military protection unit for the British delegation during the Potsdam Conference. From 1949 into the 1970s, the wider complex served as a holiday camp for schoolchildren. Extensive renovation in the 1980s prepared the lodge for museum use, with furnishings brought from Königs Wusterhausen Castle. Contamination by wood preservatives led to a prolonged closure from 1996, followed by further renovation that enabled public access again from 2007.
The historic hunting landscape has been reduced by transport infrastructure and urban development. The first Berlin-Potsdam railway and the Teltow Canal affected its northern area, while the Wetzlar railway and the AVUS, later extended as the A115 motorway, affected the west. The Nuthe expressway altered the south, and the residential districts of Stern, Drewitz, and Kirchsteigfeld were built on former woodland. Eight of the original sixteen tracks survive.
The castellan’s house continued to serve catering purposes until 1992, while the stable was converted for residential use around 1930. Jagdschloss Stern is protected as a historic monument and is managed and maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg with voluntary support from the Stern-Parforceheide Hunting Lodge Association.
Remains
The lodge
Exterior form and brickwork
Jagdschloss Stern occupies a position between two tracks of the former star-shaped hunting layout, at the edge of Potsdam’s Stern district. The single-storey building has a rectangular footprint of approximately 16 by 8.5 metres, a gabled roof, and a bell gable, whose curved outline resembles a bell. Its form follows the plain character of Dutch town houses.
The red brick walls are unplastered. The bricks were standardized by order of Frederick William I and measure about 27 by 13 by 8 centimetres. Square quarter-bricks mark the gable corners, while a plait-patterned bond on the courtyard façade reflects Dutch bricklaying techniques.
The three-bay front façade contains five tall sash windows, which slide vertically, and a central entrance door. Each side wall has two sash windows. Glazing bars and plain frames follow a type that became fashionable in England and Holland from about 1690. Three upper windows align with the attic and give the façade the appearance of a two-storey building. Smaller shuttered windows light the adjoining rooms, with two on each side wall and five on the rear façade.
A wooden door in the south-west wall leads to the corridor, while another at the rear opens toward the adjutant’s room. The exterior decoration includes a blind window with a star ornament in the bell gable and a relief above the central French window, a tall glazed opening extending close to the floor. The relief depicts Diana, the Roman goddess associated with hunting and the wilderness, with hunting equipment. These light-coloured sandstone elements were added in the nineteenth century.
Interior arrangement
The interior has a restrained sequence of rooms consisting of a hall, corridor, kitchen, adjutant’s room, and bedroom. The hall extends across the full width of the front façade and occupies almost half of the building. Its panelled, dome-shaped ceiling rises into the attic, and its yellowish-brown wood panelling contrasts with the boarded floor. An open fireplace of dark red marble stands on the east wall opposite the entrance.
A mirror with a gilded ornamental frame and five wall paintings, probably by Georg Lisiewski, depict Frederick William I in hunting scenes. Five gilded wooden stag heads with real antlers hang from the window piers. The antlers came from the king’s favourite stag, Great Hans, and date from 1732 to 1736. An inventory from 1826 lists a long painted pine table, four small square tables, three triangular corner tables, and an old bench associated with the hall’s early furnishings.
The corridor links the hall with the rooms in the rear half of the lodge. Its walls are whitewashed, and its floor, like those of the kitchen and adjutant’s room, is paved with reddish-brown limestone slabs resembling marble. In the eighteenth century, such slabs were also called cutting stones or Gothland stones and were often carried as ships’ ballast. Manganese-coloured skirting tiles bear cornflowers, chequerboard flowers, and stylized foliage. They came from a Rotterdam manufactory formerly associated with the tile-burners’ guild.
Kitchen and private rooms
The north-east kitchen was used mainly for warming and serving food, which was probably prepared in the castellan’s house. White tiles cover its walls and chimney from floor to ceiling, and the chimney rises above a brick-built stove. A low built-in cupboard with a marble worktop stands beside a marble sink with a drain.
The south-east room accommodated the adjutant, a military aide assigned to assist a senior officer or commander, and served as the anteroom to the king’s bedroom. It provided the internal access to the bedroom and included a door through which the building could be entered or left.
The bedroom has whitewashed walls, a green-painted fitted wall with white-framed panels, and a central alcove. Concealed doors on either side of the alcove lead to stairs serving the attic and cellar. A simple red-brick fireplace provided heating, and the floor is boarded.
Service structures and archaeological remains
Stable
The stable to the north-east was completed in 1733 and could accommodate at least eighteen horses. Its later conversion for residential use, carried out around 1930, forms part of the surviving service history of the lodge complex.
Brick oven
Structural remains of a brick oven were uncovered between 2006 and 2009. The oven was rebuilt in 2011 and 2012 in accordance with conservation requirements, adding an archaeological feature to the physical remains associated with the hunting lodge.
Nearby sites
