Gothic House (Bad Homburg)

The Gothic House (Gotisches Haus) is a jagdschloss (hunting lodge) in the Dornholzhausen district of Bad Homburg, just within the town boundary and at the end of the Tannenwaldallee, which forms a direct link between Bad Homburg Castle and the Gothic House.

It was built in the castle's grounds in 1823 by Landgräfin Elisabeth for her husband Frederick VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, with the foundation stone laid on 17 April that year. She funded it using her dowry and sited it in an ideal location for Frederick to host festivities and excursions. It was also sited about 100 metres south of the grave of Frederick's horse Madjar - the Landgrave had esteemed Madjar so much that he had him formally buried in 1773 and wrote a poem for the bronze plaque marking the site, which translates:

That combined all the virtues.
If one can have friendship with animals,
Here lies my friend.

Also nearby was the 'Landgrafensäule' or 'Landgraf column', erected in 1816 on what later became the visual axis from the Gothic House to the Elisabethenschneise, which in turn leads to the Hirschgarten. The original column was moved to the castle in 1835, but a replica was built near its site in 2011. The replica and original both bear an inscription, which translates as:

Frederick Louis, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg
on 30th January 1816
[erected] on the occasion of his 69th year
[and] the 51st year of his reign
by his faithful subjects

In the early Strawberry Hill variant of Gothic Revival architecture, the Gothic House's designer is unknown, but Friedrich Lotz argues it was Jeffry Wyatville, who had designed the remodelling of Windsor Castle for Elizabeth's elder brother George IV of the United Kingdom - Jeffry's uncle James Wyatt had also worked in the Gothic Revival style at Windsor and at the Castellated Palace at Kew for George and Elizabeth's father George III. Construction was overseen by Georg Moller, but was stopped permanently after scaffolding collapsed on 9 November 1823, burying and injuring eight workers, one of whom later died of his injuries.

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