Bolongaro Palace (Höchst)

The Bolongaro Palace is a large baroque palace in Frankfurt-Höchst. It is located on the south side of Bolongarostraße, and its south-facing garden lies on the high bank above the confluence of the Nidda and Main rivers. The Bolongaro Palace is the largest private baroque building.

From 1772 to 1774, the merchants and tobacco manufacturers Josef Maria Markus and Jakob Philipp Bolongaro, who came from Stresa on Lake Maggiore, had the palace built.

Origin

The Bolongaro brothers had settled in Frankfurt am Main in 1735 and founded the largest tobacco trade and snuff factory in Europe there. Despite the considerable wealth they acquired, they had unsuccessfully sought citizenship in the city of Frankfurt am Main, which was denied to them as Catholics in the Lutheran imperial city of Frankfurt. Therefore, they eventually accepted an offer from Elector Emmerich Josef of Mainz to settle in the Neustadt of Höchst, founded in 1768. In 1771, Josef Maria Markus Bolongaro became a citizen of Höchst. The Neustadt project was abandoned after the death of the Elector in 1774, and the Bolongaros themselves only used the palace briefly. After the death of Josef Maria Markus in 1779, the heirs finally reached an agreement with the Frankfurt council and received Frankfurt citizenship in 1783.

Usage

The palace subsequently served as a fitting quarter for various military commanders during the Coalition Wars, the most famous being Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte, defeated at the Battle of Leipzig, who spent his last night on what was then German soil here from November 1st to 2nd, 1813 (nearby Mainz already belonged to France at that time), as well as the pursuing Prussian Marshal Blücher, who used the palace as his headquarters from November 17th to December 27th.

In 1862, the Bolongaro family sold their palace to the Mainz manufacturer Friedrich August Sonntag, who set up a factory for gas and water pipes there. In 1880, the Rödelheim pastor Eduard Lohoff bought the Bolongaro Palace, divided the property into smaller units, and sold some of them. The Bolongaro Palace continued to be used as a factory building, including as a brass foundry or for the production of bed feathers. This led to damage to the richly decorated interiors.

In 1907 and 1908, the city of Höchst bought the parceled property from the respective owners, extensively restored the palace for approximately 400,000 Reichsmarks, and returned it to a representative use. It served as the town hall from 1908 until the incorporation of the city of Höchst in 1928. Today, it houses the district administration and a registry office in the western pavilion of the park. Since the incorporation of Höchst, the Mayor of Frankfurt has had an office in the palace. From 1947 to 1950, the German Association of Rural Districts also had its office there. The former Mayor of Frankfurt, Walter Kolb (* 1902, † 1956), lived in the west wing of the palace.