"The rarely beautiful building, the exceptionally large, wonderful park in which it is located, the location directly on the sea offer the most splendid opportunities for relaxation for the tired nerves of intellectual workers": This is how enthusiastically the Berlin University for the Science of Judaism describes it "Villa Baltic" in Arendsee in the early 1930s. The house, furnished with marble inside, served the Jewish academics as a rest home at that time. The wide, kilometer-long Baltic Sea beach is right outside the door, the neo-baroque property dominates the promenade with its column-supported veranda, bay windows, turrets and richly decorated gable. "
The search for traces first leads to the Heimatstube, a small museum in Kühlungsborn: The Jewish origins of the house are discussed in a showcase. A photo shows Wilhelm and Margarete Hausmann. The Berlin lawyer and notary had the villa built between 1910 and 1912 for 2.5 million gold marks - as a private house. The couple remains childless. Margarete Hausmann later bequeathed the property to the Jewish university. In 1931, the "Akademische Gesellschaft Hausmann-Stiftung" founded the year before opened its rest home, which was visited by 104 Jewish visitors in the first year: "The price for a full board with the best food (ritual) is RM 5."
Arendsee (today Kühlungsborn-West) was a popular holiday resort with Jewish families, but that ended the Nazi rule and the story goes on of course, but no one finds a concept for this building after the fall of the Wall. So it is there, I wonder how much longer?
In the first link from the end of December 2019 you can find out interesting facts about the new owners, the Berend brothers and Jan Aschenbeck, real estate developers from Oldenburg. They have created an extra website that includes contains an extremely informative video on the disastrous status quo as well as recordings during the appraisal by structural engineers and experts. The brothers want to be as open as possible to the population about the possible later use of the villa. The restoration will take many years.
villa-baltic.de
The building must have been very nice. As you can read from the comments there is obviously a lack of money to renovate it. It is fenced in and totally smeared with paint - it hurts just to look.
Unfortunately, the old building falls into disrepair because it is not clear who should pay for the repair. It must have been a princely building at better times.
The Villa Baltic in Kuehlungsborn (formerly Arendsee), Ostseeallee 44, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania was built by the architect Alfred Krause in the neo-baroque style between 1910 and 1912 for the Berlin lawyer and notary Wilhelm Hausmann (1856-1921) and his wife Margarete née Frank (1863–1929) for 2.5 million gold marks.[1][2]
Villa Baltic, 2013
Derelict entrance area of Villa Baltic, 2014 Margarete Hausmann donated the villa and park to the Berlin University for Jewish Studies. On June 28, 1931, Rabbi Leo Baeck opened the Villa Hausmann and the park as the Akademische Gesellschaft Hausmann-Stiftung Arendsee as a convalescent home, conference venue and meeting place for Jewish academics, their relatives and widows. In the year it opened, the house already had 104 guests.
On July 7, 1935, the Low German Observer wrote: "Arendsee will be free of Jews." Days later, the window panes of the house were smashed. By the end of 1935 there were no more guests. The property was expropriated and handed over to the Goebbels Foundation for stage workers at the Reichstheaterkammer in 1938. The house still had an extensive house library.
The person in charge of the house asked his superior in writing on November 24, 1938:
"On the floor in the old bed room we have about one and a half hundredweight of real Jewish skins, should they still be kept or handed over to the school for recycling? Also old picture frames with the photos of the crooks who built this castle, in short all such things that no longer fit into our world history."[3]
A handwritten comment on this letter with the wording "keep the frame, destroy the photos" has also survived. At a board of trustees meeting of the Goebbels Foundation in May 1940, the manager boasted that he had bought the property in Kühlungsborn for 20,000 RM, although it was worth 1,500,000 RM.[4]
In 1945 the villa served as a Soviet military hospital. After that, it was initially awarded to the Jewish State Community of Mecklenburg. In 1949 it became the property of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. During the time of the GDR, the house became the "Kurt Citizens' Rest Home" of the FDGB and for working people. In 1972, a seawater swimming pool was built next to the house and connected to it.
Despite changing owners, the villa has not been put to use since reunification, resulting in structural damage due to vacancies and vandalism. The indoor swimming pool, which was also dilapidated, was demolished in 2017.[2][5]
The Villa Baltic was included in the list of monuments in Kühlungsborn (No. 60).
In the summer of 2019, the Oldenburg brothers Berend and Jan Aschenbeck (Aschenbeck & Aschenbeck Projektentwicklung GmbH) acquired the property for two million euros. The Villa Baltic is to be saved with the support of the city.[6] The city of Kühlungsborn put the cost of the renovation at around 15 million euros. To compensate for the renovation costs, the company had applied for permission to construct the "Baltic Arkaden" commercial project: a hotel with 120 rooms, retail, restaurant and event hall is to be built on the former swimming pool site. The citizens' initiative "Save the Baltic Park" was founded against the development plans and campaigned against the sale and for the preservation of the public park[7]. In April 2021, the city council of Kühlungsborn decided to change the development plan[8], and on December 16, 2021, the majority of the city council approved the sale of the property to the investors.[9]
Northeast in front of the villa is the Kuhlungsborn-West boulder.
I hope the renovation of this great villa will get underway soon; before it continues to deteriorate. One can imagine the beauty of the past years - richly decorated with columns and bay windows ...