The road back to
splendour

Schloss Gültz was built between 1868 and 1872 to designs by the district building officer Georg Daniel – a historicist manor house with 99 rooms, a tower, an imposing double staircase and a Mirror Hall with gilded stucco decoration. The surrounding park was laid out under the influence of Peter Joseph Lenné, Prussia’s best-known garden designer.

For generations the estate was home to the Freiherren von Maltzahn-Gültz. The last of the line, Axel Freiherr von Maltzahn, served in 1923 as Honorary Commander of the Order of St John. What came afterwards – expropriation, agricultural use, decades of decay – is the fate shared by many of Pomerania’s great houses.

In 2019 a new chapter began – and it began as befits this house: with a bang. Michael Schneider – history and law graduate, classic car restorer and self-confessed bon vivant – bought the property at its second foreclosure auction. Alongside him: speculators who saw the manor mainly in terms of figures. He saw something else – a Gesamtkunstwerk of stone, stucco and a century and a half of history. In 2020 he took the property entirely into his own hands; since then, decisions here have been made not by returns but by the monument. Step by step. Room by room. With every craftsman who walks through these doors and every guest who sleeps beneath the stucco ceilings, the restoration moves forward.