Haus im Turm Castle (Rhöndorf)

Villa Merkens (also known as Haus im Turm) in the Rhöndorf district of Bad Honnef dates back to a medieval castle complex.

The later villa was built as the seat of the knightly family "von Roendorp" no later than the 13th/14th century and was surrounded by moats. In the mid-15th century, it appeared in official accounts as "boven dem thorne". It became the residence for the judge of the Löwenburg office and housed a prison. Already in the 16th century, it had also been used as a winery. The ground floor in the eastern part of the villa was built by the late Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Cologne merchant Essingh bought the property, then still called Haus im Thurm. After Essingh's death, it passed to his son-in-law Franz Merkens, a Cologne banker and co-founder of the Köln-Düsseldorfer Dampfschiffahrt. During this time, the villa was transformed into a neoclassical manor house. In 1830, the distinctive medieval villa tower was also rebuilt.

From 1943 to 1945, the villa served as a temporary quarter for the Swiss Consulate, after which it was divided into smaller units for rental purposes. It remained in the possession of the Merkens family until its purchase by the Archdiocese of Cologne in 1963. The new owner demolished parts of the outbuildings, altered the roof structure, and replaced the half-timbered elements of the left side wing with solid masonry. He operated the Archdiocese's rural adult education center there until 2004. The new use of the villa, its park, and the neighboring Haus St. Hedwig was controversial in the city; today it is the location of an upscale restaurant with wine sales and the seat of an honorary consulate of Trinidad and Tobago. In 2009, an extensive renovation of the villa was completed. The building, with its vaulted cellar, is a protected monument and is one of the few in Rhöndorf that survived the destruction of the War of the Palatine Succession in 1689 unscathed.