Finsterau Open-Air Museum
The Petzi-Hof
A completely enclosed four-sided farmstead
A complete farmstead with seven buildings was transported from Pötzerreut near Röhrnbach to Finsterau. Never before has a building of historical importance been so faithfully dismantled in all details and reconstructed at a new site. The Finsterau Open-Air Museum has made museum history with the Petzi-Hof.
It was one of the last large farmsteads in the Bavarian Forest, which has been retained in its traditional condition without changes..
When – as eighty or ninety years ago – one enters the farmstead through the portal next to the gateway today, it seems as if nothing has changed. On the right is the low, elongated “Inhaus” (building for servants). It had been built in 1818 and served most of the time as a dwelling for “Inleute” (servants). The baking oven and the “Austragshaus” (separate house for retired farmer & wife) are connected on the other side. This house was built around 1847.
The dwelling house towers above the other house by one and a half storeys. With the exception of the parlour, the ground floor is completely built out of cobblestone. The upper storey is mostly built in block construction. Only the western side was completed as a show façade in plastered brickwork during an alteration in 1867. The block construction of the parlour and upper floor stems from the year 1704.
The northern building contains a cowshed, chicken coop and pigsty. A stable for oxen and a barn constitute the eastern side of the farmstead. The large barn built in 1927 is the most recent building. Grape vines from 1927 grow on the southern façade of the barn and dwelling house up to underneath the roof ridge.
Plots of land with good soils for cereals, abundant forest and pastures belonged to the Petzi-Hof. The Petzi-Bauer was prosperous.
Documentation and inventory 1983-1986, removal and reconstruction 1985-1988 – state of construction and configuration indicate the period around 1930 – only the shell of the barn is original; an air-conditioned depot building and archive are located inside
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