Nassauer Haus, Medieval tower in Nuremberg, Germany

Nassauer Haus is a medieval residential tower of red castle sandstone at Karolinenstraße 2, opposite the Lorenzkirche. Its lower two floors date to the 13th century, while the upper floors, with regular reddish ashlar masonry, are 15th-century work. The top floor carries a coat-of-arms frieze and three pointed-helmeted corner turrets; a projecting oriel window sits below the steep hipped roof, and two small sundials are set into the stone wall.

The cellar with its irregular cross-ribbed vault and the two lower floors date to the 13th century. Around 1422 the owner Jobst Haug rebuilt at least the penultimate floor, and around 1433 Ulrich Ortlieb gave the top floor its coat of arms frieze, three pointed-helmeted corner turrets and the oriel window. In 1836 round-arched openings were inserted at ground level, one enlarged to a door around 1900.

The name Nassauer Haus dates only from the 19th century and rests on a mistaken link to King Adolf of Nassau, who died in 1298; the Nassau counts actually held property north of the Lorenzkirche. Until then the building was called Schlüsselfelderisches Stiftungshaus, after the Schlüsselfelder family, whose coat of arms hangs on a late-Baroque sandstone tablet beneath the oriel. Since 1709 it has belonged to their family foundation, administered alternately by the Kreß and Volckamer families.

The tower stands at Karolinenstraße 2, directly opposite the Lorenzkirche in the Lorenzer Altstadt, and is reached on foot from the city centre. The hall-like vaulted cellar, its cross-ribbed vault raised around the 16th century, now serves as an inn. The round-arched openings at ground level date from 1836, one enlarged into a door around 1900.

The coat of arms frieze on the top floor is the earliest known example showing both Nuremberg city coats of arms and the royal eagle beside the double-headed imperial eagle. It was commissioned around 1431, when the Ortlieb family lent King Sigismund 1,500 guilders and received his crown as pledge.