Arnesse

Set on a private lake outside Berlin, the neo-gothic manor house features 15 guest rooms, a garden restaurant serving farm-to-plate cuisine, a historical gymnasium, an outdoor pool, expansive gardens and a plant-filled solarium for private dining and events. Built as the countryside idyll of a 19th-century count and sometimes poet, the vast property reopens itself in the spirit of German Romanticism as a home for contemplation, relaxation and holistic health within the hilly landscape of the stunning Uckermark region.

An intimate setting designed in conversation with its natural surroundings, Arnesse gives the feeling of staying in an elegant private house, exuding relaxed conviviality. In the summer, life at Arnesse spills out into the terraced garden and surrounding estate, while in the winter months guests can cozy up by the fireplace in our library or have a drink in the wood-paneled bar. A variety of rooms with high ceilings and wooden arches look out over our private lake or back onto the rolling hills of the Uckermark. Within a couple hours reach of our Flussbad campus in Berlin, the renovated manor house and lakeside property is a convenient destination for workshops and retreats for members of our expanding Slowness community.

The story of Arnesse is intricately woven with the history of the land and the work of several pioneering figures of 19th-century Prussian design. The neo-gothic manor house, realized between 1839 and 1843, was designed by August Stüler. A prize student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, creator of many of Berlin's greatest architectural monuments, Stüler was inspired, like many of his German contemporaries, to create a Prussian version of Arcadia—a mythic vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature originating in ancient Greece.

His romantic architectural approach on the shores of Arendsee remains, to this day, in conversation with the estate’s gardens executed in the style of Peter Joseph Lenné, the favorite landscape architect and horticulturist of the Prussian court. For nearly half a century, Lenné shaped the art of gardening in Prussia, designing the plans of Berliner Tiergarten and the Sansoucci Palace in Potsdam. Combined, the contributions of these 19th-century masters embody the vision of Arnesse’s founder, Count Albert von Schlippenbach, to cultivate a relaxing retreat for arts, nature, and contemplation.

Life at Arnesse is deeply entwined with the natural environment, offering a range of seasonal activities around the private lake and undulating 20-hectare estate where the natural beauty of the landscape, its local flora and architectural history, have been carefully preserved. At Arnesse, we take up this spirit of preservation, tucking in spaces for meditation, boating, bathing and exercise around the property. Meandering paths under old-growth tree canopies lead around the private lake to our terraced hillside farm brimming with seasonal vegetables and a few resident animals. Guests can take kayaks and canoes out on the fresh-water lake, sunbathing on its banks in the warmer months and dipping in for an ice plunge in the winter.

With its rolling hills and quaint villages, the bucolic Uckermark region is a favored destination for many creatives from the German capital looking for abundant nature at short distance. A region steeped in farming tradition, it is today a center for agricultural experimentation, with notable farm-to-table restaurants and world-class artisans in many of the historic towns neighboring Arnesse.