Schloss Roseck

Schloss Roseck stands high above the Ammer valley near Unterjesingen in the Schönbuch forest. It began as a medieval castle built by the Counts of Tübingen in the 12th century. The fortress was first recorded in 1287 and later passed through the hands of local nobles and the Bebenhausen monastery. After the monastery’s dissolution in the 16th century, it became a Württemberg estate and later a private farm. The present building dates largely from the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was owned by industrialists and managed as a dairy and fruit farm.

The site is notable for its layered history and the figures who shaped it. Rudolf Bernus, a Frankfurt millionaire’s son, took possession in 1826, followed by his stepson Leonhard Benz and later the Riedlinger family. In 1947 the soap manufacturer Franz Öchsle gave the estate to the Franciscan Sisters of Heiligenbronn, who ran a convalescent home from 1958. A fire in 1991 left the main building empty, and after a period as an asylum hostel it returned to private ownership in 1993.

Visitors today see a largely unoccupied historic house set in extensive grounds. The 1959 annex, once a care home with twenty-one beds and ten sheltered flats, now stands empty after the home closed in 2014. The surrounding Schönbuch landscape offers quiet walks beneath tall trees, with distant views across the Ammer valley. Plans by COPRO and the architects Sindlinger + Vogt aim to restore the ensemble while respecting its heritage. The estate remains a quiet witness to centuries of change, its future still taking shape.