The main house with its Art Nouveau gable
Assmannshausen, first recorded in 1108History since 1752
Wine and hospitality on the Rhine since 1752.
Ours is an old house, truly old: wine has been grown and guests welcomed here since 1752. The Schön family's inn became a lodging house for Rhine travellers, then a horse-changing station for the towpath haulers, and finally a hotel with an Art Nouveau gable. A short journey through time, through our house and through a village that entered history with a vineyard.
The house & the Schön family Assmannshausen & the Rheingau
Wine from the very beginning
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1108Assmannshausen
A vineyard for a birth certificate
Assmannshausen is mentioned for the first time, as “Hasemanneshusen”. The occasion: the gift of a vineyard. So the village enters history with wine.
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1136Rheingau
The monks and the Burgundy vine
Cistercian monks move into Kloster Eberbach. Tradition has it that they bring the Burgundy vine with them, the ancestor of Assmannshausen's Spätburgunder.
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1507Assmannshausen
The first red wine
Red wine is recorded in Assmannshausen for the first time. To this day, the village is known for its Spätburgunder from the Höllenberg.
The Schöns, towpath haulers & Rhine Romanticism
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1752The Schön family
An inn and a wine estate on the Rhine
This is where our story begins: according to tradition, the forebears of the Schön family found an inn, a resting place for the towpath haulers and their horses, and grow wine. Parts of the house still date from that time, and the wine is still pressed here in the cellar.
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c. 1800The Schön family
The first guests
With Rhine Romanticism, a journey to the Rhine becomes the fashion. More and more travellers stop by, and, as the house chronicle puts it, “the inn soon becomes a lodging house”.
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from 1830The house
Fresh horses for the towpath haulers
The house becomes a horse-changing station. The towpath haulers used horses on the bank to tow boats upstream. The stained-glass window “Ein Weinschiff wird getreidelt” (A wine barge being towed) still recalls those days; you will see it at breakfast.
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1862Assmannshausen
The railway brings the world
The railway reaches the village, and with it come more and more guests, according to the house chronicle “even crowned heads”.
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from 1872The house
Taking the cure at the “Schützenhof”
The hotel, then called the “Schützenhof”, joins the new spa trade. A certain Dr Mahr holds consultations in the house, offering “treatment by electricity and kneading cures”.
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1880The house
New Year with drifting ice
On 1 January, drifting ice and floodwater destroy the house's cast-iron veranda. The Rhine shows just how close it is.
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1883Rheingau
The Germania above the Rhine
The Niederwald Monument is unveiled, high above the vines between Rüdesheim and Assmannshausen. A year earlier, Assmannshausen was already the first address for German red wine: the oldest Höllenberg still tasted today is from 1882.
“250 years of winegrowing and, presumably, just as many of hospitality.”Schöns Wein-Blätter, 2002
From the house newsletter
This is how the Schön family marked its anniversary in 2002. The old house newsletter remains the loveliest source on the history of the house, with anecdotes from two centuries.
Art Nouveau, war & a new beginning
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c. 1900The house
An Art Nouveau face for the old house
The main house is renewed and extended in the Art Nouveau style, with a curving gable and ceilings up to 3.5 metres high. You still stay beneath them today.
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1908The Schön family
A house next door
Karl Schön buys the neighbouring plot at auction. His son Johannes later builds the guest house there, right beside the main house.
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1939 – 45The house
Quiet years
During the war the hotel stays closed; in 1945 American troops occupy the house. That year's harvest: a mere 300 litres of red and 600 litres of white wine.
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1949The Schön family
Guests on the Rhine once more
Karl Heinz Schön reopens the hotel and extends it together with his son Karl Johannes.
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1953Assmannshausen
By chairlift to the Niederwald
The chairlift up to the Niederwald opens in the village. It is due to run again from the start of the 2027 season.
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1956The Schön family
The Rhine freezes over
A winter the family still talks about today: the river outside the house lies still beneath a sheet of ice.
World Heritage & new hosts
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2002Upper Middle Rhine Valley
UNESCO World Heritage
The Upper Middle Rhine Valley becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site, from Bingen and Rüdesheim to Koblenz. Assmannshausen lies right at its beginning.
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20261 July 2026
New hosts
After more than seven generations in the Schön family, Wiebke and Robin take over the hotel. Weingut Karl Schön, the family wine estate, stays with the family, and its wine stays in the house: in the carafe on the terrace.
Wiebke & Robin
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2029Looking ahead
Federal Garden Show in the World Heritage valley
The BUGA, Germany's Federal Garden Show, comes to the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, with Rüdesheim as one of its venues. The next chapter we will write together with you.
A guest in an old house
Sleep beneath high ceilings in the main house, drink the wine of Weingut Karl Schön on the terrace, and over breakfast, discover the stained-glass window with the towpath haulers.
Book direct: best price and free cancellation up to 2 days before arrival.- House newsletter “Schöns Wein-Blätter” no. 5, November 2002, with family chronicle
- Historical photographs: the Schön family, from “Schöns Wein-Blätter” and the hotel's previous website
- Stadt Rüdesheim, town history; history of Assmannshausen; KuLaDig, Assmannshausen district
- Niederwald Monument: giggel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- Assmannshausen chairlift: Brühl, Wikimedia Commons, public domain
- Vineyards near Rüdesheim: Kurt Möbus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Bend of the Rhine at Assmannshausen: ParsaAB, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0