Gentzrode Manor

Gentzrode is an estate in the urban area of Neuruppin, near the city center. It was built in 1876/77 in the Moorish style for Alexander Gentz.

In 1840, the Wustrauer Luch was acquired and Gentzrode was founded. In 1855, the cloth manufacturer, merchant, and peat bog owner Johann Christian Gentz acquired the "Kahlen Berge" (Bald Mountains) north of the city center of Neuruppin. There, together with his son Ludwig Alexander Gentz, he established a model agricultural enterprise.

The granary in Gentzrode was built in 1861 according to designs by Carl von Diebitsch.

After the family moved to the estate, Alexander Gentz planned a complete redesign: a park with a castle and a mausoleum.

The manor house in Gentzrode was built in 1876/77 according to designs by Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden in the style of Orientalizing Historicism. The park was designed by Gustav Meyer.

The fact that the construction costs significantly exceeded Gentz's estimates contributed to the ruin of the Johann Christian Gentz company. It went bankrupt in 1880.

In 1881, Gentzrode was sold for about 1/5 of the construction sum to Messrs. Albert Ebell and Oberamtmann Troll, who, however, probably never intended to use the estate long-term. They sold the inventory and, after only ten months, in July 1882, the estate itself.

The new owner was A. Wernicke, a machine manufacturer – especially for sugar factories – from Halle, who presumably wanted to grow sugar beets there. However, the poor soil quality quickly made him abandon this plan. After only five years, he exchanged it for the Konooko estate located in Posen.

This made Paul Hoepffner the new owner, who in turn sold it after just over a year in June 1888 to the former Bremen consul in Argentina, F. W. Nordenholz.

In 1934, the site came into the possession of the Wehrmacht and was used as a firing range and ammunition depot. In 1945, the Red Army took it over. Until the summer of 1991, the 112th Guards Rocket Brigade of the 2nd Tank Army (headquarters in Fürstenberg) of the GSSD/WGT was stationed here. Directly in Gentzrode were the 1st and 2nd departments as well as the headquarters (staff) of the rocket brigade. The Red Army added various buildings: a cinema, two prefabricated buildings, two barracks, a heating plant, a daycare center, a sauna, and a grocery store for up to 5,000 people were built between the houses.

After the withdrawal of the Red Army, the buildings initially fell into disrepair before Hans-Werner Angendohr, an entrepreneur from Werder, bought the entire property with about 500 hectares of land. Angendohr and his partner Gert Friedrich von Preußen abandoned the plan to build a hotel here due to the density of hotels around Neuruppin.

There were plans to use the manor house for exhibitions and events and to build a holiday resort on the site. However, since the acquisition in 2000 by the owners, no structural preservation measures have been undertaken, so the buildings are in a ruinous state.

In 2010, the Turkish investors Volkan Başeğmez and Bilgiç Ertürk acquired the Gentzrode estate. The planning and renovation are entrusted to the Stuttgart architect Sandro Graf von Einsiedel.