Trappensee Castle

The Trappenseeschlösschen is a striking Baroque building located in the middle of Trappensee lake in the east of Heilbronn.

The Trappenseeschlösschen (less commonly Trappenseeschloss) is considered one of the oldest preserved secular buildings in Heilbronn. It was built in 1519 as a castle-like complex, which in 1575-1576 gave way to a Renaissance new building by Mayor Philipp Orth, who had received inspiration for the design of the new building during a trip to Italy. Orth operated a fish farm there and established an orchard around the lake. At that time, the lake was still called Orthensee or simply the Seegut after its owner.

At the beginning of 1653, the Heilbronn merchant family Trapp acquired the Seegut. The later Schultheiß Johann Bernhard Trapp and his brother, Mayor Ludwig Trapp, were ennobled on May 4, 1653. The Trapps became the namesake for the lake and the building, whose designation as Schlösschen or Schloss also dates from this period.

The descendants of Mayor Ludwig Trapp died in quick succession within a few years: his son Johann Ludwig Trapp (born 1621) died in 1675, thus outliving his namesake son Johann Ludwig Trapp (1646–1674). The latter's son Ludwig Heinrich Trapp died in childhood in 1674. Ludwig Trapp's last descendant, his great-granddaughter Anna Elisabethe Trapp, married councilor Peter von Roßkampff (1680 junior council) in 1691, the grandfather of Heilbronn mayor Georg Heinrich von Roßkampff. Thus, the Trappensee became the property of the Roßkampff family in 1691. In 1714, Mayor Johann Heinrich Orth (a great-grandson of the former owner Philipp Orth) acquired the complex. A well-known fruit cultivation developed in the estate around the lake during the 18th century.

In 1784, after several changes of ownership, the Schlösschen was redesigned into its current Baroque form by the former admiral and Dutch envoy to the Electoral Palatinate court, Heinrich August von Kinkel (or Kinckel; born August 14, 1747, in Heilbronn; died November 10, 1821, in Mannheim). However, Kinkel mostly resided in Mannheim, which led to various "sacrileges" and burglaries in the unused building. Ultimately, Kinkel sold the property in 1804 to his two sisters, who leased it to the Heilbronn butcher Heinrich Pauly. After the death of the sisters Rosina Elisabeth (died 1808) and Sophia (died 1830), Rosina Elisabeth's daughter Elise Freifrau Rüdt von Collenberg, who had celebrated her wedding in the Trappenseeschlösschen in 1791, inherited the property. Elise died childless in Heilbronn in 1834, her inheritance fell to relatives of her husband, who died in 1825, and they sold the property to the previous tenant Pauly in 1838.

Around 1879, the Heilbronn brewery Cluss acquired the property and built a taproom, today's Trappenseegaststätte, in the immediate vicinity along Jägerhausstraße. In 1977, the building was acquired by the city of Heilbronn and extensively renovated. Since 1985, the auction house Dr. Jürgen Fischer has been the tenant of the Trappenseeschlösschen.

From 1909, the Pfühlpark was created between the Trappensee and the Pfühlbrunnen, growing to its current size of approximately 15 hectares by the 1934 garden show.