Schloss Möhler

Schloss Möhler is a Baroque water castle in the village of Möhler, part of Herzebrock-Clarholz in the Gütersloh district. It stands on the site of a medieval knight’s estate first recorded in the 11th century as ‘Mudelare’. A burg-like structure probably arose here in the 13th century when local knights served counts and monasteries. By the 16th century the Wendt family held the land and built a Renaissance house between 1549 and 1564. The estate passed in 1709 to the Kettler family from the Baltic. Karl Aemilius von Kettler, a Prussian chamberlain, commissioned a two-winged Baroque palace between 1710 and 1715. The architect remains unknown, and the interior was never fully finished. The Kettlers used the building as a summer residence for only a few decades before selling it in the 19th century to the dukes of Croy. Today only the main wing survives, its former side wings removed in the 1850s. The castle itself is not open to the public, but its restored Baroque garden reappears with symmetrical box parterres and statues laid out to original plans. Inside, several businesses operate, including a restaurant, architects, engineers, photographers and designers, providing forty jobs altogether.