Helmstätter Manor

The Helmstätter Herrenhaus is a historic building in Heidelberg-Handschuhsheim. The listed building, now used as a restaurant, dates back to the free noble estate of the village, whose ownership was linked to the neighboring Tiefburg castle. After the destructions of the 17th-century wars, the Lords of Helmstatt abandoned the castle as their residence and instead built the manor house around 1700 on the site of a former farmstead.

The Helmstätter Herrenhaus estate has probably always belonged to the neighboring Tiefburg castle and was walled together with it. On the site of the manor house, there was probably a farmstead belonging to the then castle lords, the Lords of Handschuhsheim, even before 1600. After their extinction, the castle and farmstead came into the possession of the Lords of Helmstatt in 1624. The castle, farmstead, and village were devastated in the 17th-century wars. The current manor house was built around 1700 by Georg Adam von Helmstatt and was inhabited by the comital family until 1930. For a long time, it still formed a unit with the neighboring Tiefburg castle. The large courtyard gate of the manor house dates back to around 1600 and probably once formed the main access to the castle complex. A garden belonging to the estate once extended on the site of today's street "An der Tiefburg". In the immediate vicinity of the manor house, various farm buildings were located until the recent past. The house of the estate manager was attached to the right of the manor house. Behind the residential and administrative buildings, a larger flower garden extended, behind which, parallel to the manor house, were pig and chicken coops, and at right angles to them, horse, cow, and sheep stables. The estate grounds were bordered by a large barn, whose cellars are probably still preserved under the street "An der Tiefburg". The barn had a rear exit to the area where the Protestant church and the rectory are located today.

The free noble estate was inhabited and managed by Viktor von Helmstatt (1851–1935) until 1905. After his mother's death, he moved to Neckarbischofsheim and had the estate managed by an administrator. Later, his nephew Bleickard von Helmstatt (1871–1952) took up residence there, but moved to Hochhausen Castle in 1930. As it became apparent that there would be no more male Helmstatt descendants, Bleickard von Helmstatt gradually sold the family's Handschuhsheim property after the death of his father Raban in 1932 and his uncle Viktor in 1935. Hans Kuhn acquired the free noble estate in 1935.