Gut Panker with the Olen Liese: from manor house to gastronomic stronghold

In the middle of picturesque Holstein Switzerland in the district of Plön, in the municipality of Panker, lies the 500-year-old Panker Estate. The historic estate comprises an imposing gatehouse, a farmyard and a chapel, while the somewhat later baroque manor house with a lake and English landscape park forms the center of the estate village. The estate village is an official part of the municipality of Panker. Today, around 80 people live here, the majority of whom work in the village.

Over the course of its long history, the Panker estate has been farmed and inhabited by various noble families and personalities. The land on which the estate stands today has been owned by the Rantzau family since the end of the 14th century, who managed the estate and built the core of the manor house, often referred to as the castle, in 1650. In 1739, the Swedish King Frederick I of the House of Hesse acquired the estate for his illegitimate sons, Frederick William, Prince of Hessenstein and Carl Eduard, Count of Hessenstein. Together they founded the manor of Hessenstein, which developed into a social center of the Schleswig-Holstein nobility in the duchies. After the death of Count von Hessenstein, Gut Panker became the residence of his brother, the Prince von Hessenstein, and so the estate in its present form was created around 1800. After his death in 1808, Gut Panker passed to the Electors of Hesse-Kassel.

Today, the estate, including the land and buildings, is owned by the Hessian House Foundation, a family foundation of the House of Hesse, which is tasked with preserving the cultural values of the Hessian princely house. At the end of the 1980s, the estate village, which had previously been characterized by the countryside, was expanded to include further concepts for tourist purposes. Around 20 years later, in 2008, an estate community was founded on the estate in close cooperation with the Hessian House Foundation with several objectives: to secure the long-term economic viability of the businesses located in the estate village, to preserve the estate as a lively village worth living in and to promote a sense of community among the estate residents.