Knight's Park Hotel
The Ritters Park Hotel in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe was the first hotel address in the spa town for many years . With up to 260 rooms at times, it fell into the category of a top building in a big city or a health resort , which was fulfilled from a size of 250 rooms. In addition, it fulfilled (until 1914) the demands made on discerning luxury hotels in the “Handbuch der Architektur” of 1885 . It owes its name to its founder, Konrad Ritter, and to the proximity to the spa park across the street .
history
The nucleus of the later hotel was the building on Kaiser-Friedrich-Promenade 69, which was built between 1854 and 1856 as a residence for Georg Deininger, the operator of the Kurhaus restaurant . In 1883 Konrad Ritter acquired the house and had it converted into a hotel by the well-known Homburg architect Louis Jacobi . In the following years, Ritter expanded his hotel by gradually acquiring various neighboring buildings. First of all, immediately after his acquisition, Ritter had a magnificent wing with a terrace and halls built. In 1891 he acquired the immediately adjacent building at Kisseleffstrasse 13 (former Hotel Anglais ) and in 1898 the building number 71 on Kaiser-Friedrich-Promenade was incorporated. The final size of the Park Hotel was reached in 1909 with the acquisition of the neighboring villas with the numbers 73 and 75.
The heyday of the hotel fell during the reign of Wilhelm II , the last German emperor , who ruled from 1888 to 1918 and liked to stay in Bad Homburg. Numerous high-ranking and financially strong personalities were lured into the health resort, many of whom stayed at the Ritters Park Hotel.
After the death of the hotel's founder Conrad Ritter (who now spelled himself with a “C”) in 1921, his son Carl Ritter (1868–1953) took over the management. But even he could not stop the gradual decline of the hotel, which resulted in the loss of importance of Bad Homburg after the First World War . So he was forced to sell the hotel to the German Reich in 1942 . From then until the end of the Second World War it served as a health resort and recreation center for the Waffen SS . After the American invasion , it came under the control of the occupying power , which reopened the hotel on March 1, 1948.
In the early 1950s, the nested hotel was rebuilt (which was partly explained by its original composition of various individual houses) so that after the construction work was completed, the halls, which were previously on different levels, were now all at the same height. The newly created ballroom had space for around a thousand people and was one of the largest in Hesse .
The Steigenberger Hotel Group acquired the hotel in 1956, but its name was retained until it was closed in 1977. It was only after its demolition and reconstruction that it reopened on January 2, 1991 under the name Steigenberger Bad Homburg .
Prominent guests
The early guests of the hotel included the then Prince of Wales and later King of Great Britain , Edward VII , during various spa stays in Bad Homburg, and the Empress of Austria , Elisabeth of Austria , along with numerous other personalities from politics , nobility and business .
After reopening in the 1950s, Elvis Presley stayed here at the beginning of October 1958 and Bhumibol Adulyadej , the King of Thailand , in the summer of 1960. Other well-known guests included the well-established film actor OW Fischer and the singer and composer Udo Jürgens, who is still at the beginning of his musical career .
The last famous hotel guests were the soccer players of FC Bayern Munich , who spent the night of May 15, 1977 here on May 14, 1977 after their last away game in the Bundesliga in the 1976/77 season at Eintracht Frankfurt . At that time the long-time national players Sepp Maier , Franz Beckenbauer , Georg Schwarzenbeck , Uli Hoeneß , Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Gerd Müller played for Bayern . Immediately after their departure, the old Ritters Park Hotel closed its doors forever.
literature
- Ritters Park-Hotel - meeting point of the big world . Lecture by Gerta Walsh in Aus dem Stadtarchiv. Lectures on Bad Homburg's history . Publisher: City of Bad Homburg vdH, 2000. ISBN 3-928325-26-4
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ritter's Park Hotel, Kaiser-Friedrich-Promenade 69-75. Places of treatment. (As of June 2017). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
- ↑ Elvis Presley: Ritters Park Hotel, Bad Homburg, Germany: First weekend of October 1958 (English; illustrated article).
- ^ Eintracht Frankfurt - FC Bayern 2: 1 at fupa.net
Coordinates: 50 ° 13 ′ 34.9 " N , 8 ° 37 ′ 19.28" E