Confessions of a Castleholic

Schloss Biebrich , or Biebrich Palace, owes its existence to Count Georg August Samuel of Nassau-Idstein. Upon raising to the rank of a Prince in 1688, he decided to expand his domestic situation to better reflect his new status. He wished for a more impressive residence than the one he owned in Idstein. He first moved to Wiesbaden and later to Biebrich, where construction of a new palace started in 1701. Prince Georg August Samuel had already purchased the parcel of land on the Rhine river five years earlier but only built a pavilion there originally. The palace was completed in 1702 according to plans of Julius Ludwig Rothweil, although a second structure, identical to the first, was added in 1706. The first part of the palace, known as the West Pavilion, became the home of Georg August Samuel, while the eastern part was reserved for his wife née Princess Henriette Dorothea of Oettingen-Oettingen. In 1707, Baroque architect Johann Maximilian von Welsch linked the two pavilion...

The origins of Schloss Herrenhausen , or Herrenhausen Palace, date back to the year 1638 when a farmyard called Höringehusen was built on the same site. During the following decades, many changes were made to the estate and slowly but steadily the manor house developped into a maison de plaisance . In 1676, Duke Johann-Friedrich of Braunschweig-Lüneburg commissioned architect Marinus Cadart to erect a summer residence for the Calenberg line of the Guelph family. As one branch of the Guelph family could never have less than one of the other branches and the Wolfenbüttel line had just finished the Versailles-like Schloss Salzdahlum , Elector Ernst-August decided to expand his family's summer residence in Herrenhausen just outside of Hanover, however, the construction plans he had drafted himself were never carried out. His son, Elector Georg Ludwig better known as the British King George I, concentrated his efforts on creating a garden, a move that had been initiated by his mo...