Karl Fürchtegott Grob
Karl Fürchtegott Grob (* 1830 in Zurich ; † 1893 ibid) was a Swiss tobacco grower in Sumatra , builder of the Villa Patumbah in Zurich and one of the richest Zurich residents of his time.
Life
Karl Fürchtegott Grob was born in Zurich in 1830 as the son of a baker. His father was chairman of the guild for Weggen and a member of the large city council. The family lived on Niederdorfstrasse above the bakery.
The young Karl Fürchtegott was taken out of elementary school at an early age and sent to a school in Mettmenstetten "because of bad behavior and restlessness" . At the age of 15 he lived in Neuchâtel and at the age of 21 began training as a clerk in Basel .
In 1858 he moved to Messina , where he met his future partner Hermann Näher from Lindau on Lake Constance . In 1869, Grob and Näher followed the call of the Swiss planter Albert Breker, traveled to his plantations in Deli on Sumatra and, as Breker's partners, first maintained nutmeg gardens. Later they started their own business as tobacco growers under the name “Näher & Grob”. In 1871 they leased 5000 hectares of land from the Sultan of Serdang; Within a few years they were able to expand this area to 25,000 hectares. Around 2500 Chinese and 1800 workers from Sumatra and Java worked on the huge plantation in the service of “Näher & Grob”. Thanks to the cheap labor, tobacco growing on Sumatra made enormous sums of money in the first few years. Grob achieved an extraordinary fortune that would later enable him to build the Villa Patumbah.
Grob ran the plantations until 1889. Then he and Näher sold the company to a consortium from Amsterdam. His plantations were transferred to Senembah Maatschappij, later one of the four large tobacco companies in Sumatra.
In 1879 Grob moved back to Zurich. At first he lived with his brother Heinrich, who had given up the bakery job and lived in the "Haus zum Weingarten" in the middle of the Riesbach vineyards, which were still numerous at the time. The Zurich suburb of Riesbach was just about to develop into the preferred residential area of wealthy city dwellers.
In 1881 Grob married the sister of his sister-in-law Anna Dorothea Zundel (1847–1930), who also came from an old bourgeois family in Zurich. Through this marriage and through his commitment as a guild in the Weggen guild, Grob was able to consolidate his position in Zurich society. In 1883 he bought his brother Johann Heinrich Grob's 13,000 square meter property between Zollikerstrasse and Mühlebachstrasse with an unobstructed view of the city, lake and mountains, right next to the "Haus zum Weingarten". From 1883 to 1885 he had the famous Zurich villa builders Chiodera and Tschudy build the Villa Patumbah , which overshadowed everything previously known in terms of splendor. Evariste Mertens designed the spacious garden . The "Vineyard House" was demolished after the Patumbah Villa was built.
Grob died in 1892 of a tropical disease that he had brought with him from Sumatra. His widow and two daughters Margaretha (1881–1924) and Anna Carolina (1883–1966) stayed in the villa for around twenty years until they gave them to the Neumünster Diakoniewerk in 1910.
literature
- then and now , magazine for archeology and monument preservation, issue 1/2009; Zurich
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Grob, Karl Fürchtegott |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss tobacco grower in Sumatra, builder of Villa Patumbah in Zurich |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1830 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zurich |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1893 |
| Place of death | Zurich |