The Nie­der­mairhof — A journey through time

Every inch of this house has a story to tell of past cen­turies. Yet there’s nothing old-fashioned about the place: its young owners have let plenty of light, air and space into the Nie­der­mairhof and have brought this his­toric structure right up to date with great sen­si­tivity and an exquisite sense for what looks good. Pro­found respect for ancient and modern, coupled with daring room layouts have yielded mar­vellous results. Host Helmuth Mayr has sketched a journey through time.

An idea. Much dis­cussion. A sheet of paper. The start of some­thing.

I imagine, more than 700 years ago, that is how the story of the Nie­der­mairhof began. The paper wouldn’t have been bleached in those days, and cer­tainly wouldn’t have been in digital form, and what was written on it would not have been called Home­Story, yet.

The story I have to tell begins in 1439, about 135 years after the first mention of the Nie­der­mairhof. It starts with the words “Kris­toffel ein elicher Sun des Val­lentain zu Die­tenhaym“ (Kris­toffel, noble son of Valentine of Die­tenheim) and con­cerns a con­tract signed by a magis­trate. We still have the parchment in the house, along with many other things.

Almost six hundred years have passed since then. Many gene­ra­tions have kept the farm going, dowries paid, con­tracts of exchange con­cluded, coats of arms granted and land sold and inhe­rited. Some­times there were dis­putes over inhe­ri­tance. Emperors (in this case Kaiser Rudolf or Leopold I) and arch­dukes were men­tioned in docu­ments.

Then we came along. Kathrin, the owner and builder; Helmuth, the writer of these lines. Emperors and kings only exist now on tele­vision and in the gossip maga­zines. We no longer write on parchment. Perhaps we think we have come a long way. Nevert­heless, the house is still the same old house. What is the Nie­der­mairhof to us and how can we make our own con­tri­bution to its story?

Lots of ideas. Lots of pos­si­bi­lities. Lots of dis­cus­sions. As paper doesn’t cost quite as much as it did in olden times, we used a great deal of it. Fresh start fol­lowed fresh start, and draft fol­lowed draft. Months passed. Looking out over the whole of the pro­perty, we found it very dif­ficult to find answers to the ques­tions we’d been asking our­selves. So we tried, step by step, to piece things tog­ether.

We felt the need to start with the main house. A building that was repea­tedly extended over the cen­turies and its function adapted to cir­cum­s­tances. On old church banners, you can still see it depicted as a two-storey, smaller house. It was extended, sideways then upwards. Farm­house. Inn. Guest rooms (yes, they called them that even then). A youth hostel. The building also served as a school room one year. Riotous fire brigade balls were held here, which the oldest inha­bi­tants of the village still remember with a smile.

We can still do all of that, we thought. We opted for guest rooms. We hoped inte­resting visitors would come to us in the summer holidays, just as charming gen­tlemen and beau­tiful ladies from the Austro-Hun­garian mon­archy did in the late 19th century. Writing witty rhymes in the visitors’ book. Filling the house with life.

After two years of building, we declared that “the house lives”. House and guest book. There were many ques­tions and decisions that would demand our attention later. Decisions that had no right or wrong, no good or bad. Many things emerged from the building process itself. With trade­speople and local craft­speople. During evening dis­cus­sions. We dis­co­vered that one or two ele­ments played through ever­y­thing like a leit­motif, almost unno­ticed.

What was old and worth keeping remains

We have suf­fered for this doc­trine. The old collar-beam roof now required support in the form of an iron structure. Old flo­or­boards were carefully removed; the parquet flo­oring, Saturday after Saturday, piece by piece, was taken up. Stuck to the underside, we found the delivery note of the imperial and royal railway line. The old tiled stoves were also reinstalled. We fiddled around a bit with them and they now give us heating and hot water. Stoking up the stoves with wood was, and still is, too much like hard work. So somewhat newer tech­nology was needed in the mix.
Tog­ether with a con­ser­vator, we checked point by point where pre­ser­vable wall pain­tings came to light and exposed them. The old beds, vanity units, cup­boards, chairs and tables were taken to a fur­niture res­torer. Every day we were faced with new decisions. Was it worthy of pre­ser­vation? Could we bring this into a new context? Exciting thoughts.

The outer façade should retain its former grace

Just how inte­resting this building is became apparent at the very start of the building works. The roof came first. It had been raining in for quite some time. The roof alone could have an entire story dedi­cated to it. It is beau­tiful and at the same time crazy in shape. In the evenings, we drew the shapes from the wea­thered remains of acro­teria (orna­ments) onto the wide plastic flo­oring. We found 60 cm-wide larch boards so that the acro­teria could be cut from a single piece. We thought up visual tricks so that the roof would still retain its narrow appearance. We nego­tiated with car­penters and plumbers over every cen­ti­metre of wall structure for the roof dormers. Where do you see 10 cm dormer wall struc­tures? All for the sake of the pro­por­tions.
For the windows we sought out the window fitters with the thinnest profile. The colours of the building, shutters and roof were dis­cussed and agreed with the con­ser­vator – and so on. As I said, the roof has a story to tell all its own.
With hind­sight, I can look back and smile about it all.

Be bold and innovate

Where we had to remodel, we didn’t waste any time. We came into our own, thinking up daring designs with architect Andreas Val­lazza. From the first drafts to the pro­perty we even­tually created it was a very long journey, and everyone put their own stamp on the plans.
That’s another subject I should touch upon, a subject I have undervalued. Not just that everyone has their own cha­racter. It is won­derful to see how men and women live and expe­rience archi­tecture and design dif­fer­ently. During the building period which lasted almost two years, we had the pri­vilege of working with won­derful artists, desi­gners and crea­tives of both sexes.
Ideas, dreams, prac­tical con­side­ra­tions and great respect for the project as a whole gene­rated some­thing com­pletely new. Our own century too has given rise to some fabulous mate­rials, colours and tech­niques. We’ve been in it for more than 16 years now, after all. Time in which to gain a foothold on the century.

Old houses don’t neces­s­arily have wafer-thin walls

Speaking of feet, people love hearing their own flo­or­boards creaking, but the neigh­bours defi­nitely don’t. There are other things too that should go unheard. That is why it was important that we treated the subject of acou­stics with par­ti­cular attention to detail. An old house doesn’t have to have wafer-thin walls. With a few tricks and some bold inno­vative mea­sures once again, we managed to reduce footfall and air­borne sound con­siderably. So now our skirting boards have parted company with the floor. The con­ver­sa­tions and dance groups have also parted company with the next door room. In a very old house.

Hap­piness

Oh yes. Nobody got injured. We are still a couple, and we are very happy in the house. We hope that we have brought the house gracefully into this century. A house which has been passed down from gene­ration to gene­ration over hundreds of years; and we are still doing new things. We are thinking about building a children’s play house and also how we can develop the design of the garden. Talking about it is a real delight. We think we are very for­t­unate.

An idea. Much dis­cussion. A sheet of paper. The start of some­thing.

Text: Helmuth Mayr­Fe­bruary 2017

Images: Helmuth Mayr, Arnold Ritter

See house