A fairy-tale mansion filled with mysterious art collections and architectural wonders awaits visitors in Aschaffenburg, Germany. The Gentil House, built by industrialist Anton Gentil (1867-1951), stands as an enchanting testament to early 20th-century collecting passion, deliberately shutting out modernity while preserving its secrets in perpetual twilight.
The villa resembles something straight out of Hogwarts, with its slightly neglected garden, hedge roses, and beautifully moss-covered enclosure. Half-timbered elements combine with quarry stone and clinker bricks, while bay windows and a small tower create a distinctive silhouette. The house features artfully wrought iron grilles designed by Gentil himself, protecting small windows beneath a steeply rising roof that seems to reject the outside world entirely.
This architectural isolation was likely intentional when Anton Kilian Gentil designed the building at Grünewaldstraße in 1922 specifically for his remarkable art collection. Unlike his first house across the street in Lindenallee, which featured generous loggias, balconies, delicate Art Deco elements, and comparatively large window fronts, the Gentil House embraces a more inward-looking design philosophy. The style, drawing from English and old German country house traditions, was fashionable at the time despite emerging architectural modernism.
Time appears to have stopped inside the house, as Thomas Schauerte, director of Aschaffenburg's museums, explains during exclusive tours. "I regret that it doesn't have ghosts," he says with a smile, though visitors immediately understand his meaning. Not only have the old clocks stopped – time itself seems frozen here. Gentil ensured this effect early on, creating what Schauerte describes as a total work of art, which was bequeathed to his hometown along with approximately 2,000 objects.
Entering through the vestibule into the kitchen-living room, visitors must first adjust to what Schauerte calls "Egyptian darkness." This atmosphere results not only from tiny window openings, dark floorboards, and heavy furniture – some designed by Gentil himself with intricate carvings – but also from niches, steps, and gloomy alcoves built into every floor. The dimness is enhanced by paintings, graphics, sculptures, altars, and countless knick-knacks including historical beer mugs, candlesticks, and kitsch figures that visitors can barely recognize without bringing their own light.
Gentil's artistic lamps throughout the house cast magical shadow pictures on walls with their ornaments but provide little illumination. This applies even to the central two-story hall crowned by a surrounding gallery. Despite the darkness, the artist's house consistently generates enthusiasm among visitors, especially younger ones. "They find it awesome!" Schauerte notes, explaining that such museums, reminiscent of early modern art and curiosity cabinets, feel like Hogwarts to children.
The building's limitations – including narrow stairs, lack of central heating, and cramped conditions – restrict access to summer months and small groups only, keeping it an "eternal insider tip," according Schauerte. However, "Pump Anton," as the trained glazier, locksmith, and founder who achieved prosperity building specialized pumps is still known locally, was famous for more than his extraordinary buildings throughout Aschaffenburg. This original character drove through the city in his open sports car, hosted refined gentlemen's evenings, and maintained friendships with numerous artists from the Munich circle.
Gentil particularly revered Franz von Stuck, from whom he acquired not only a magnificent version of Medusa but also commissioned a Bacchanalian piece in 1905 that now hangs opposite. He befriended Ludwig Eberle, represented throughout the house with numerous wood reliefs and supporting figures, as well as Frankfurt's Fritz Boehle, whose self-portrait hangs in the downstairs hall. Gentil frequently had himself portrayed by his many artist friends, resulting in one or two dozen oil and bronze portraits discoverable across the villa's four floors. Perhaps the most curious is the death mask created by his son Otto, trained as a sculptor in Munich.
Visitors might wonder whether this ghost house truly harbors spirits, especially during moonlit hours. Anton Gentil stipulated that his ashes be interred in the wall behind a bronze memorial plaque, and so it was done. The nameplate by the doorbell takes on new meaning – Anton Gentil has never truly left his house. Yet it's not shivers that keep visitors exploring floor by floor longer than expected, but rather the possibility of discovering something in every crevice.
Schauerte himself continues making discoveries, whether examining graphics, illuminating frieze-like reliefs, or studying cylinders for the built-in organ that played Handel, Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, or Beethoven's Prometheus Overture according to Gentil's mood. Despite a nearly 40-year-old city publication about the Gentil House, much remains uncatalogued and undescribed. Some graphics may have been forgotten, and visitors can observe what happens to good woodcuts hanging on walls for decades without proper archival protection.
Consequently, particularly valuable collection pieces like a Romanesque crucifix possibly from Lorsch Monastery or the circa 1530 painting "Hercules at Omphale" attributed to Lucas Cranach and his workshop are now preserved in the Collegiate Museum rather than the house. Nevertheless, treasures abound throughout this layered collection of graphics, paintings, Asian art, handicrafts, sculptures, and curiosities. Visitors can discover prints by Albrecht Dürer, Barthel Beham, and Hans Baldung Grien alongside moral and drinking sayings, a touching Salzburg Madonna on the crescent moon, and sketches "à la El Greco, third brew," as Schauerte mercilessly judges.
Gentil's collecting approach, evident throughout his house designed primarily for displaying his collection, never focused on profit. He simply collected what pleased him. While he may have occasionally been deceived – as with the El Greco copy or what Gentil himself believed was a domestic altar from Hugo van Goes' era – outstanding pieces by often unknown masters can be found, particularly in the so-called chapel with its Franconian winged altar and among the Gothic and late Gothic sculptures.
"Every square centimeter here is designed," Schauerte remains fascinated after six years directing Aschaffenburg's museums. The Egyptian darkness, medieval cramped conditions, and overwhelming abundance of sometimes awkwardly placed exhibits might overwhelm visitors. However, as Schauerte notes, people don't come to move into this enchanted, timeless structure – they come to listen to the house's stories, to wonder, and perhaps to marvel. This magical experience awaits at every step.
The Gentil House at Grünewaldstraße 20, Aschaffenburg, remains open through October. Registration through Aschaffenburg's tour network is required by calling 06021/3868866 or email. Additional information is available at museen-aschaffenburg.de.
