Steinenhausen Castle

Steinenhausen Castle is a baroque castle complex near Melkendorf, a district of Kulmbach in Upper Franconia. The imposing building was owned for centuries by a line of the Barons von Guttenberg. It is located directly at the confluence of the Red Main and White Main rivers. At the confluence of the Main behind the castle, km 0 of the Main begins.

In 1439, Rüdiger Henlein and his brothers Ulrich and Jörg were enfeoffed with the Steinenhausen castle site by Margrave Friedrich of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. Bernhard von Guttenberg zum Steinenhaus presumably began the construction and expansion of the castle in 1481:

:„The next clue can be found in an alliance coat of arms (Guttenberg/Fuchs von Schweinshaupten) above the right entrance door in the castle. The accompanying inscription states that Moritz von Guttenberg had the coat of arms plaque installed in 1512, when he began the construction of a new Kemenate... in the castle“.

However, Moritz von Guttenberg's brothers, „one of the most important and dazzling figures... of the noble Guttenberg family“, Heinrich IV and Bernhard, had already contributed to the reconstruction of the castle.

The baronial Guttenberg family sold the castle in 1935 to the „Bayerische Bauernsiedlung“ (Bavarian Farmers' Settlement). The archive and inventory were transferred to Kirchlauter Castle in the Haßberge mountains. Among other things, a NSV. kindergarten teacher and after-school care teacher seminar was housed in the castle from 1940 to 1945. After 1945, the building was briefly used as a maternity ward and subsequently for many years as a retirement home.