Schloss Suresnes

Schloss Suresnes is a small castle in Schwabing, a lively district of Munich. It went up between 1715 and 1718 for Franz von Wilhelm, who served as a cabinet secretary. The plans probably came from Johann Baptist Gunetzrhainer. The model was the Château de Suresnes near Paris, where von Wilhelm had spent time during Elector Max Emanuel's exile.

Ownership passed through many hands over the years, among them Baron Manteuffel and Countess von Preysing-Moos. By the middle of the nineteenth century the house had slipped into neglect. Carl August von Steinheil took up residence in 1855. By the end of that century the castle had become a meeting place for young artists. Figures such as Paul Klee and Hans Reichel belonged to the circle that gathered there. Since 1967 the Catholic Academy in Bavaria has used the building as a conference centre. The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising owns it.

The building itself is modest in scale: two storeys, a nine-axis front facade and a three-storey central block. Around it lies a park of roughly one hectare, planted as a French garden. The house does not open to the public, so the facade and the garden are what you get to see. Three centuries on, it remains a piece of Paris kept green in Schwabing.