Longing Starnberger See
How often have we driven, cycled, paddled or sailed past all these sights around the lake in recent years. How often have we had to (quietly) admit to ourselves how little we know about their origins, about the people and the houses they built. One can make it easy and dismiss everything under “well, the rich and beautiful of Lake Starnberg just”. But the story is clearly more exciting, more complex and more impressive.
Sure, anyone who wants to move right here to the lake these days has either inherited very, very rich or is a soccer player. But many families have been here for over a hundred years. Came at a time when no one wanted the wet meadows by the lake. So maybe you should have had a great-grandfather who thought summer retreats were chic…. In any case, many unbelievable things have happened from then to now, and Katja Sebald’s new book gets to the bottom of them.
The author Katja Sebald has once again set out around Lake Starnberg to discover the stories and secrets of the villas and their inhabitants and bring them to light. The opportunity to accompany her on these journeys of discovery and to photograph several of the villas, we have of course not missed.
More than forty villas, which still characterize the landscape today and whose inhabitants have written history, can be experienced in this round trip around Lake Starnberg. The large-format pictures in the book can certainly prove this, but it is above all the often downright unbelievable stories that make the book so worth reading and experiencing.
Sehnsucht Starnberger See is a book about monkey lovers, ghost barons, museum founders, kings and artists, about the good old days, which indeed contain beautifully romantic but also equally dark chapters. For us, it is simply a must-read for everyone who lives here, who loves the area, and who is interested in how it came to be the way it is today.
Neighborhood on the southern eastern shore: Some let their treasures completely decay despite monument protection, others preserve the memory.
Sehnsucht Starnberger See
is published by Allitera-Verlag in Munich and is available everywhere in bookstores or directly on the publisher’s website (click on the cover to open a small reading sample):
