History of the Krone Hotel
“Tradition entails responsibility and obligation.“
Way back in 1541 a Bingen customs clearance clerk on the shore of the Rhine River purchased a small horse exchange station for towing vessels and opened a rural inn. Of course, nobody would be able to predict the remarkable future of this place. More than two centuries later the Krone Tavern was established in the year 1808; it was the very place where the horses were exchanged that were towing the vessels upstream with a rope from the towpath.
From the very start the “Rhine Romance” engendered an exemplary history for the “Krone Assmannshausen Hotel” enchanting its visitors ever since.
A mere hundred years ago the Rhine River had sent shivers down the travellers’ spines, then as an embodiment of wild Romance the Rhine drew general admiration and was courted with many tales, sagas and folk songs. This was not only a landscape change as such, there was a complete about-face on the way to perceive nature. Since that time Assmannshausen’s charm-ing beauty has been widely appreciated.
The poets Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim eulogized the lovely landscape, thus raising a Sleeping Beauty without meaning to. The popularity of the “Krone Assmannshausen Hotel” was growing slowly and unstoppably.
When Ferdinand Freiligrath was penning down his manifesto “a Confession of Faith” in the “Krone Hotel” - both he and his wife were our guests - this signified the beginning of a new era pulling a lot of poets and musicians to this place. Robert and Clara Schumann, Hoffmann von Fallersleben and artists whose works have adorned the hotel rooms since that time were among the regular guests. Crowned heads like the German Emperor Wilhelm I or “Sissi” the Empress Elisabeth of Austria were served “to protocol” at the end of the 19th century.
The cooper Joseph Hufnagel acquired the hotel in 1893 and embellished it on a grand scale in the romantic Rhenish style by adding timber framing, oriel windows and turrets. The following year the opening ceremonies of his completely refurbished “Krone Hotel” drew worldwide attention.
In the following decades the premises were expanded and embellished in several intense construction phases. The adjoining dwelling house was purchased in 1908 and converted into a park hotel.
This top-level development continued to the present day, so that the „Krone“ belonged to the first German hotels with a swimming pool in 1928. The then owners Mrs Dr. Irene Hufnagel and her husband were nominated “Hoteliers of the year” in the year 1993.
A host of attractive guests graced us with their presence in the following decades with many crowned heads, high ranking politicians and statesmen like the German Federal Presidents Theodor Heuss and Walter Scheel featuring prominently.
The Corporate Group Dr. Lohbeck running a couple of historical castle and palace high standard hotels acquired the “Krone Assmannshausen Hotel” in 2006. They aim to carry on the legendary history of this noble hotel right into the future.
picture gallery (Click on pictures to enlarge)
