A Dream Castle In An Old Factory
Every time I visit Berlin, I feel like being part of something alive and in motion. The city is so fascinating that you can never get enough. Nevertheless, every time I face the same problem: where am I going to stay? A friends’ couch or cheap, anonymous hostels are usually my choice but, thanks to Silke Lorenzen and Sarah Vollmer, next time I will consider another, more cozy option. Silke and Sarah decided to open a small and unconventional hotel in their neighborhood Neukölln a residential district in southern Berlin. The hotel, called Hüttenpalast, was built inside an old factory, hidden in the backyard of a house from the turn of the century. Each hotel ‘room’ is an old caravan or a wooden hut settled in an indoor garden.
“We lovingly parody the typically German ‘Schrebergartenglück’ (the joy of spending some time in a small garden plot in the middle of many other small garden plots) and provide you with a bit of retro happiness and summer.”
The accommodation areas are connected to the hotel café through an outdoor garden, where it is possible to see the original clinker-brick facade of the old factory. To visit a city means not only to encounter its most famous spots and highlights, but also to discover its hidden secrets, go where locals go, share their manners and their dreams. Silke and Sara have built their very own dream castle for us, and we would definitely love to join them during our next visit to Berlin.