Biologenweg 20, Heritage monument in Kloster, Germany.
The Sethehof at Biologenweg 20 is a 1925 solid house with a thatched roof, built into the slope in Kloster on Hiddensee. A narrow outdoor stair leads to a terrace, the main entrance and a hall; the large living hall spans the full width and extends into the gable. The masonry is fully jointed and coated with a mortar wash, and the west gable is articulated by expressionist chimneys set on the diagonal.
Irma Saenger-Sèthe bought the plot near the Pingel house in Kloster in January 1924 from the Kloster zum Heiligen Geist in Stralsund, on condition that a country-style house be built within two years. The architect Otto Firle, her daughter's former husband, designed the solid thatched house, completed in 1925. Shortly before emigrating to France she sold it to the Berlin lawyer Franz Crüger, and it was renamed Crügerhof during the so-called Aryanisation. Owners Angelika and Claus Beneking restored it from 2007 to 2009 and gave it back the name Sethehof.
The house is still called Sethehof after its first owner, the violinist Irma Saenger-Sèthe; between the 1930s and 2009 it was known as Crügerhof after the Berlin lawyer Franz Crüger, who bought it before emigrating. The Saenger-Sèthes were neighbours and close friends of Gerhart and Margarete Hauptmann, and Peter Spiro described the two violinists standing chin-deep in the Baltic with raised arms, since seawater harmed violinists' hands.
The house sits directly on Biologenweg street, which is easily reached on foot from the center of Kloster. It is best explored by bicycle or on foot, as cars are limited on the island.
The west gable is broken up by expressionist chimneys set on the diagonal, which throw changing shadows across the wall. The gable treatment recalls Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Windyhill in Kilmacolm (1899–1901). The windows, now blue, were originally white.
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