Haus im Turm, Architectural heritage villa in Rhöndorf, Germany

Haus im Turm is a villa in Rhöndorf, south of the town centre on Drachenfelsstraße, whose medieval tower was rebuilt from 1830 to 1832 with a domed roof topped by a belvedere. The classicist wings, a steel-and-glass greenhouse and a chapel by Vinzenz Statz were added in the 19th century, and a loggia on eight columns of Stenzelberg trachyte was set before the west wing in 1909.

A tower with surrounding moats, seat of the knights "von Roendorp", stood here by about 1440, recorded in official accounts as "boven dem thorne". From 1555 it housed the judge of the Amt Löwenburg and a prison; judge Michael Heister, who bought it in 1637, added half-timbered wings. The fire that French troops set in Rhöndorf in 1689 during the Palatinate War of Succession spared only this house and the neighbouring Kemenate. From 1830 to 1832 the Cologne merchant Johann Theodor Essingh rebuilt it as a classicist mansion, replacing the tower's stepped gable with a domed roof crowned by a belvedere.

The name Haus im Turm comes from the medieval tower at its core; 17th-century records call the estate "boven dem thorne". A 1678 survey lists a wine press house, bakehouse and brewhouse plus extensive vineyards, and the neighbouring Kemenate was long used alongside it. The building later served as a summer residence for Cologne merchant families.

The villa stands south of Rhöndorf's centre on Drachenfelsstraße, with the park around it; the Remise outbuildings face the tower at the driveway entrance. The grounds were placed under landscape protection in 1937 after a demolition application was refused, so the park layout survives. The building itself is privately used and not open as a wine tavern.

The 1689 fire that destroyed Rhöndorf during the War of the Palatine Succession left only two buildings standing: Haus im Turm and the neighbouring Kemenate. The survival of the medieval tower on that occasion explains why its stepped gable still appears in 17th- and 18th-century drawings.