The Paintings
The Danish landscape painter Peder Mørk Mønsted (1859–1941) was among the leading realists of his time. He travelled through Europe, North Africa and the Middle East – and visited the Spreewald several times between 1909 and 1921. He is known to have painted in Lehde; signed works carry the addition “Lehde 1913”. His painting Going to Market (1911) shows the property on the Dolzke, presumably from the so-called Malerblick in Lehde – the viewpoint from which the waterways and old cottages can be seen to particularly good effect.
The Berlin painter Bruno Moras (1883–1939), son of the well-known Spreewald painter Walter Moras, also chose the property as a motif. His work Blick in den Spreewald captures the ensemble in the light that is typical of Spreewald painters.
A third painting shows the property from a different perspective. The artist is unknown and the work is undated. It is one of the few records that capture the place from an angle that postcard cameras never chose.
The Postcards
From at least the 1930s, the ensemble appeared on postcards from numerous publishers – and it kept doing so for more than five decades. The oldest documented cards are by Hermann Striemann (Cottbus, no. 321, postmarked 1934, caption: “Spreewald scenes – Old farmsteads in Lehde”) and Otto Schökel (Cottbus, no. 12, postmarked 1934). Both were sent from Lübbenau – by visitors who saw the property and mailed a card back home.
Print runs followed from Arthur Redecker (Berlin-Tempelhof), Verlag Jank (Burg/Spreewald), Willy Klautzsch (Magdeburg), and – over decades and in large editions – VEB Bild und Heimat Reichenbach, the GDR’s most important postcard publisher. At the same time, the motif appeared with West German publishers such as De Beeke (Schwanewede) and Graphokopie H. Sander KG (West Berlin). In total, 13 postcards from at least 10 different publishers are documented – from the Weimar Republic to the 1980s, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The Jigsaw Puzzle
1982 the ensemble appeared as a Ravensburger jigsaw puzzle – title: Im Spreewald, item no. 6255680, confirmed by the company archive in Ravensburg. Anyone who received it for Christmas back then put this property together without even knowing it.
Lehde is no ordinary village. No cars drive here. No road leads straight to the houses. To reach the islands of this circular village, you take a punt – just as people in the Spreewald have done for centuries when going to market or harvesting vegetables.
The village belonged to the Lübbenau estate and grew slowly. At the beginning of the 18th century, barely more than a dozen people lived here. Settlers opened up new land, and fishing and vegetable farming fed the families. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lehde had around 300 inhabitants. Today the entire village is protected as a heritage area – one of the few ensembles in Germany that preserves traditional Sorbian building and settlement forms in such completeness.
The heart of the property is the Scheune. The long, log-built structure with its dovetailed corners, double-leaf wooden doors and characteristic gable roof has been listed since 2011 as a protected monument on the State of Brandenburg heritage register.
The Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archaeological State Museum (BLDAM) cites historical, ethnological and urban-planning significance as the reason for the listing: the building is an “illustrative example of a stable and barn building erected in traditional construction, of which only a few comparable structures of this size and originality remain in Lehde”.
A dendrochronological report dated the sill beams to the winter of 1804/05 – the timber was felled while Napoleon was reshaping Europe. It is still standing today.
On the northern gable there are crossed bargeboards, the so-called “snake heads”. In the Spreewald they were considered protection against evil spirits. In any case, the building is still standing.
The entire development of the property is also part of the heritage area-protected village of Lehde – and Haus anno 1750 and Bienenhaus were restored under heritage-protection requirements as well.
In 2011 it was high time. The buildings had survived decades without major interventions – a blessing for the historic fabric, but not a sustainable condition. The Scheune, the listed monument, was on the verge of collapse: the structure weakened, foundations undermined, the building fabric acutely at risk in several places.
With the guidance of the Lower Heritage Protection Authority of the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district, the work began. Planned by Planungsbüro Jochintke, Calau; carried out by Zimmerei Maschen from Ragow (Lübbenau). The two large buildings were completely dismantled and re-founded – carefully, using appropriate materials, with the aim of securing the historic fabric for the next generations.
A question guests occasionally ask: why are Haus anno 1750 and the Scheune not thatched? The answer is sober – and typical when working with historic buildings: fire safety. Since the buildings are less than 15 metres apart, the building authority prohibited a thatched roof. Thatch burns – and at this distance a roof fire would endanger the entire ensemble. The Bienenhaus, which stands a little further away, was allowed to keep its thatched roof.
In 2012, the Scheune and Haus anno 1750 were completed. In 2014, the restoration of the Bienenhaus followed. In 2020, the ensemble was completed with a small outbuilding for administrative purposes.
What welcomes guests today as Ferien am Fließ is the result of this work: a place that carries its history without sinking into it.
More impressions from the restoration
The property An der Dolzke 11a is today a holiday retreat with three houses for up to 12 people – on a small island in the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve, surrounded by waterways, without car traffic, with its own small harbour.
The Scheune, the listed monument, is the most extraordinary of the three houses: log walls, fireplace, sauna, just 1.5 metres to your own mooring. Here you sleep in a building that was timber-framed in 1804 – and that the State of Brandenburg considers important enough to protect.
Some guests don’t care. For others, that is exactly the reason why they come.
