Altes Jagdschlösschen Harreshausen, Hunting lodge in Harreshausen, Babenhausen, Germany
The Altes Jagdschlösschen Harreshausen is a two-storey baroque former hunting lodge with a square plan and a mansard hipped roof, built 1722–23 for Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau. Its plastered facades have four axes on the west and east sides and five on the entrance side, with two dormer windows per side in the lower roof. Remains of the entrance portal stand at today's garden gate.
The lodge was constructed in 1723 on the orders of Count Johann Reinhard III of Hanau to serve the noble hunting passion. After World War II, the building survived intact while a nearby weapons store built in 1779 was destroyed by bombing.
The lodge's name links it to the Hanau counts, and its main façade was aligned on an elm avenue running straight to Babenhausen Castle. Count Johann Reinhard III shared his passion for hunting with Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, whose son Ernst Ludwig VIII later built the similar Dianaburg. The avenue is now a protected natural monument with over 300 lindens and 25 horse chestnuts.
The lodge stands on private property and can be viewed from outside via the walking paths and tree-lined avenue surrounding it. Several marked trails crisscross the area, allowing visitors to walk past the historic trees and explore the grounds at their own pace.
The lodge's original hunting arsenal, a long single-storey building with its own mansard roof, was demolished in 1779 and rebuilt by 1782 as the Zeughaus on Hanau's Freiheitsplatz; it was badly damaged in the air raid of 19 March 1945 and later torn down.
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