Haus Rüschhaus on the occasion of the Palaces and Castles Day

Haus Rüschhaus is a country estate in the Nienberge district of Münster. It was built between 1745 and 1748 according to designs by Johann Conrad Schlaun and was occupied by him as a summer residence. The estate, whose architecture meets the standards of a feudal aristocratic residence, is designed like a rural Gräftenhof. Schlaun succeeded in creating a synthesis of a Westphalian farmhouse and a sophisticated country residence in the French style.

In 1825, the landlord of Hülshoff Castle, Baron Clemens-August II von Droste zu Hülshoff, the father of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, acquired the elegant country house. After her father's death in 1826, the poet moved with her mother and her sister Jenny into the Rüschhaus, only about five kilometres from the house where she was born in Hülshoff, and lived here until 1846.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff lived in three small rooms on the mezzanine floor of the Rüschhaus, which she shared with her former nurse. She called her living room, where she retreated to write, her "snail's shell", and here she devoted herself literarily to her native Westphalia. Nature became her main theme. This is where she wrote her best-known work, "Die Judenbuche" (The Jewish Beech).