Geroldsauer Mühle

The Geroldsauer Mühle is a 3,000 m² Black Forest house with restaurants, a shop for regional produce and information about the Black Forest. The Weingärtner family of entrepreneurs, based in Baden-Baden, designed and built it with a great deal of personal effort and opened it on 22 August 2015. It is the largest silver fir building in Germany. Its byname “the gateway to the Black Forest” comes from its position between the Baden-Baden districts of Lichtental and Geroldsau, at the start of the Schwarzwaldhochstraße. That road climbs into the Black Forest and up to the national park there.

Concept

Two words sum up the concept of the Geroldsauer Mühle: pure Black Forest. It starts with the building and carries on well beyond the natural-produce market and the restaurants.

Food and drink

See main article: Wirtshaus Geroldsauer Mühle

The restaurant is a high-capacity operation that still feels rustic, with around 200 seats indoors and another 350 in the beer garden. Further rooms can be booked for events and celebrations.

Mühlenkiosk

See main article: Mühlenkiosk

The seasonal Mühlenkiosk across from the mill, on the far side of the Grobbach, belongs to the house as well. It sells ice cream and drinks and keeps a small sandy beach with deckchairs on the bank. The Wirtshaus team runs it.^[1]

Guest rooms

The upper floor holds four double rooms of 24 to 33 m² and two suites of 54 and 60 m². They are named after mountains in the region: the double rooms Steinberg, Wettersberg, Leisberg and Fremersberg, the suites after Baden-Baden’s highest point, the Badener Höhe, and the local landmark mountain Merkur.

Natural-produce market

Eighty-five farmers and farm shops supply the market with regional produce. The range covers around 1,500 items, all of them carefully chosen. Wines and fruit brandies from local estates and distilleries stand in the wine corner. A bakery with a viewing window onto the baking and a butcher’s counter with a wide choice of game round out the offering. The organic beef from Geroldsau’s Highland cattle is on sale here too, of course.

Gift and accessories shop

The “Heimatliebe” shop, which Mrs Weingärtner runs herself, stocks unusual gifts and accessories.

Information

The Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord, the national park and the city of Baden-Baden all have displays in a permanent exhibition on the upper floor.

Outdoor event agency

The outdoor event agency runs varied excursions and activities in the Black Forest, with a focus on team-building and incentive events for companies.

History

A grain mill stood on the site in the 19th century. A mill water right, in force since 1860, allowed the mill to be driven by water from the Grobbach. By the early 20th century the Geroldsauer Mühle was an inn. Latterly a hotel occupied the site and fell into growing disrepair over the years. Martin Weingärtner bought the Geroldsauer Mühle in the spring of 2013.^[2]

Together with his sons Felix and Peter and his brother Roland, Martin Weingärtner turned the idea of a market barn into reality, modelled on the market barn in Berghaupten in Gengenbach. The family planned to carry out around 20 to 30 percent of the construction work themselves.^[3] The run-down old building was demolished. The foundation stone was laid on 5 June 2014, and a millstone worked by the stonemason Walter Grimm was set up for the occasion.^[4] Around 500 guests came to the topping-out ceremony in March 2015. After 14 months of construction and not one accident on site, the Geroldsauer Mühle was finished. The opening ceremony took place on 22 August 2015. In her opening speech, Baden-Baden’s mayor Margret Mergen called the Geroldsauer Mühle a jewel, a flagship and THE gateway to the Black Forest.

The building

The firm Weingärtner Holzbau built 12 kilometres of silver fir beams into a modern Black Forest house. The client’s brother, master carpenter Roland Weingärtner, was responsible for the design and its execution, and the beams were cut at his company’s sawmill in Geroldsau.^[3] The roughly 12,000 individual timber parts were then assembled on site, a step carpenters call Aufschlagen.^[5] Traditional joinery held them together, with tenons and dovetails. Only four steel connections were needed, for structural reasons. At the opening, Roland Weingärtner called the building his life’s work.

The building stands on a 0.75-hectare site between the Grobbach and the horse paddock of the Weingärtner farm Rehgarten. It was built along environmentally friendly lines and is fully accessible without steps. The mill water right held since 1860 is used to run the house’s own hydroelectric plant, which generates the electricity for the Geroldsauer Mühle. A photovoltaic array on the roof adds to the supply.

Getting there and parking

The Geroldsauer Mühle stands on Geroldsauer Straße. The building is striking enough that anyone driving through Geroldsau can hardly miss it. There is parking on the site, though the first week after the opening showed that the spaces were not enough. Public transport reaches the Geroldsauer Mühle as well: bus routes 204 and, less frequently, 245 stop directly in front of the big Black Forest house at the newly built “Geroldsauer Mühle” stop.

Sources

• Official website
• Report Eröffnung der Geroldsauer Mühle on Landesschau Baden-Württemberg, 24 August 2015

References:

1. ↑ Eishütte Geroldsauer Mühle - Eisgenuss im Schwarzwald, Geroldsauer Mühle, accessed 9 August 2026 (Archived)
2. ↑ Article Große Pläne für Geroldsauer Mühle by Harald Holzmann in the Badisches Tagblatt, 18 May 2013
3. ↑^3.1↑^3.2 Article Ein Puzzle aus 12 Kilometer Holz by Bernd Kappler in the BNN, 28 July 2014
4. ↑ Article Festakt an Geroldsauer Mühle by Harald Holzmann in the BT, 5 June 2014
5. ↑ Article Das Puzzle nimmt Formen an by Bernd Kappler in the BNN, 4 November 2014