Paretz Park

Paretz is located 20 kilometres northwest of Potsdam directly on the Havel. With its combination of house, gardens, village design and surrounding floodplain, the entire site is a prime example of early Prussian country architecture, which is still clearly recognisable despite some losses.

In early 1797, the Paretz estate was purchased as a summer residence for Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm II and Luise. The early landscape gardens, typical of the period, with numerous small architectural features in prominent locations, form the design framework of the overall composition. It has three parts with different characteristics: to the south of the palace as far as the Kettengraben is the former stately palace garden, in the central triangle between the palace, church and neo-Gothic smithy is the church garden as a refined village green variant and to the west on a ridge is the Rohrhausgarten, named after a rustic former viewing pavilion.

From 1900 onwards, a phase of decay followed decades of poor maintenance. Much of the park's characteristic features were lost. The construction of apartment blocks in the 1960s also sealed off the Rohrhausgarten from the rest of the ensemble.

In 1999, the reconstruction of the palace, which was completely rebuilt after the Second World War, and the front area began and was completed three years later, including the planting, aha ditch and fence. The restoration of the remaining 7.5 hectares of garden is still ongoing, but the preserved old trees, ground modelling, paths and buildings already give a good impression of the former charm of the design. A milestone in the restoration was the reconstruction of the Grottenberg in the south-east corner of the park, which was completed in 2020.