Apartment//Holiday home Villa Sei­nerzeit

When Mon­schau-based architect Sandra Stuppi-Bartsch first stepped into this house, she felt as if she were in a time capsule. All the rooms were still fur­nished, many of them untouched for decades. The house posed a question to the visitor: What to do with this gem? And the architect decided to first ask the house itself what it was and what it wanted to become.

What fol­lowed were four years of mindful explo­ration, under­standing, and creation: layer by layer, the structure was unco­vered – old wall­paper, crumbling plaster. Beneath it lay lime plasters in sea blue and delicate green, which today form the basis of the color scheme. In this way, the process of unco­vering layer by layer became a design tool in itself. Straw-clay from the exposed half-tim­bered walls was crushed, sifted, mixed with water, and reap­plied. Ori­ginal cast-iron radiators, massive oak doors, and stucco ele­ments on high cei­lings were pre­served.

All this takes place at Villa Sei­nerzeit, built in 1780. It was during this period that Monschau’s cloth-making industry reached its peak: fine cloths from the town were in great demand at European royal courts and even in the Orient. Anyone of standing who could afford it built in a stately manner – and this was par­ti­cu­larly true of the cloth mer­chant Peter Wilhelm Schmitz. To this day, the villa, which stands close to the rocky slope, shapes the town­scape of Mon­schau. Over the cen­turies, notaries, mer­chants and doctors’ families have lived here.

Today, the house com­prises three holiday flats, accom­mo­dating between two and six people. All the flats exude the spirit and history of the house: antique fur­niture, which the owner and architect had dis­co­vered, has been res­tored and reinte­grated, whilst reclaimed oak flo­or­boards have been repur­posed into bespoke table tops. Each unit has its own outdoor area, and wood-burning stoves create a cosy atmo­sphere.

What to do

Immerse yourself in the history of the clothmakers at the Rotes Haus and sample some mustard in the old town. Go hiking in the Hohe Venn and the Eifel National Park, or cycle along the Vennbahn Cycle Route. Vogelsang IP, the important Nazi documentation centre, is also just a short drive away. Aachen is nearby, as are the Dutch and Belgian borders.

Why we like this house

Because someone didn't just want to make a house look pretty here, but to really understand it.

This house is great for

Families, couples or groups of friends. If you hire the whole house, it’s the perfect setting even for a long-awaited family reunion – there’s room for up to 13 people here.

Sustainability

The renovation made consistent use of natural building materials – clay, lime plaster, wood fibre, oak – and focused on reusing existing materials: straw-clay, floorboards, doors and furniture from the original building were given a new lease of life. Heating is provided in a carbon-neutral way using wood pellets, and electricity comes from renewable energy sources. Accessible by public transport; a charging point for electric cars is 100 metres from the house.

Owner

Architect Sandra Stuppi-Bartsch and her husband, geographer Oliver Bartsch, see themselves as spatial scientists: people who not only design spaces but also grasp their depth and think them through. They live in Monschau and rent out the apartments directly.

Details

Availability calendar

The calendar shows the current availability of the accommodation. On days with a white background, the accommodation is still fully available. If an accommodation has more than one rentable unit, days with free capacities are shown with a light grey background. On days with a dark grey background, the accommodation is not available.

Request/Booking