Charlottenhof Palace

Charlottenhof Palace or Charlottenhof Manor (German: Schloss Charlottenhof) is a former royal palace located southwest of Sanssouci Palace in Sanssouci Park at Potsdam, Germany. It is best known as the summer residence of Crown Prince Frederick William (later King Frederick William IV of Prussia). Today, it is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.

Charlottenhof Palace and its surrounding park are located in the Brandenburger Vorstadt district of Potsdam's Westliche Vorstädte borough. Being located adjacent to Sanssouci Park, it is part of the Berlin-Potsdam Palaces and Parks system.

The palace is located between the Potsdam-Park Sanssouci and Potsdam-Charlottenhof railway stations, both offering direct DB Regio regional rail connections to Potsdam Central Station and Berlin Central Station.

Several Potsdam Tram lines connect the palace to central Potsdam at Schloss Charlottenhof and Bahnhof Charlottenhof/Geschwister-Scholl-Straße stations.

The park area, with its various buildings, dates back to the 18th century. After it had changed hands several times, King Frederick William III of Prussia bought the land that borders the south of Sanssouci Park. He gave it to his son Frederick William and his wife Elisabeth Ludovika for Christmas in 1825.

The Crown Prince charged the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel with remodeling an existing farmhouse, and the project was completed at low cost from 1826 through 1829. In the end, Schinkel, with the help of his student Ludwig Persius, built a small Neoclassical palace on the foundations of the old farmhouse in the image of a Roman villa.

With designs he created himself, the artistically inclined Crown Prince participated in the planning of the palace and its surrounding park. He referred to this summer residence as "Siam", which at the time was considered "the Land of the Free", and to himself jokingly as the "Siam House architect".

Officially, the palace and park were named "Charlottenhof" in honor of Maria Charlotte von Gentzkow, who had owned the property from 1790 to 1794.

The interior design of the ten rooms is still largely intact. The furniture, for the most part designed by Schinkel himself, is remarkable for its simple and cultivated style.

The palace's most distinctive room is the tent room fashioned after a Roman Caesar's tent.

Text adapted from “Charlottenhof Palace” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Charlottenhof Palace ranks #1,103 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #87 of the 492 mapped in Germany. Founded 1826, it is older than 11% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 562 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 3,760 times in the last 60 days, more than 79% of the atlas. 14 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Berlin, 28 km away. See how Germany compares in the castle statistics.

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