The Building

The house in which Ludwig van Beethoven’s mother was born was built in the 17th century. Originally it consisted of a ground floor made of solid quarry stone and an upper floor made of a half-timbered construction. In the 18th century a redesign took place in which the facade was completely plastered according to the fashion of the time. The building was inhabited until the 20th century. In 1960 the city of Koblenz together with the Deinhard Foundation (which was founded on the initiative of the Wegener family) acquired the house and set up a Beethoven memorial. It was opened in 1975. After severe damage from a fire the building was renovated between 1987 and 1989 and a chamber music hall was added to the rear building. Today the museum Mother Beethoven House is a branch of the Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz where exhibits on the history of Ehrenbreitstein as an electoral residence and on the bourgeois world of Beethoven’s time are presented. At the same time important cultural figures who lived in Ehrenbreitstein and Koblenz are remembered – such as the writer Sophie von La Roche (1730-1807), the poet Clemens Brentano (1778-1842) and the soprano Henriette Sonntag (1806-1854).

(from: broschure of Mother Beethoven House published by the Middle Rhine Museum Koblenz)