A hotel with a living history
Hotel Rad – History
Let’s turn back the wheel together and step into our living history.
Hospitality since 1360
In 1330, Emperor Louis gave the Count of Montfort permission to rebuild Tettnang as a fortified town complete with walls and a moat. “Diet the Innkeeper” was mentioned as the first owner of the Rad (which is German for “wheel”) in 1360, in the oldest document issued by the Tettnang municipal archives. He could never have imagined what lay in store for the house in the future!
Three hundred years later, the Mesmer and Wiggermann families kept the Rad inn going through the difficult era of the Thirty Years’ War, during which the Swedish army temporarily turned it into a post office.
The “Rad” as an inn and post house
Throughout the next few centuries, the Rad Inn doubled as a post office and so its history became closely intertwined with postal services in Upper Swabia. In 1680, the innkeeper – a man named Gebhardt – was appointed postmaster of the “Thurn und Taxis” dynasty, sparking a tremendous boost in business for the Rad.
The most significant event, however, occurred during the time of Ferdinand Bleicher, who acquired the Rad in 1806 for just 13,500 guilders and was likewise a postmaster for both Thurn and Taxis and the Royal Wuerttemberg postal service. The purchase contract specifically referred to the adjoining “Spargelgärtle” (asparagus garden) – evidence that the Rad Inn’s asparagus dishes must already have been very popular all those years ago. On 4 September 1838, the Russian Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna came to stay at the Rad – an honour that testifies to its excellent reputation even then!
Half-timbered since 1921
Hotel Rad has been owned by the Eberhardt-Blank family since 1921.
It’s difficult to believe that a restaurant that burned to the ground managed to prepare more than 10 tons of asparagus again in a temporary building a mere 8 days later. We find it amazing too! Yet in fact it was the asparagus season that paved the way for the hotel to be rebuilt and another extension added soon after in 1984. Since then, our facade has been resplendent with rustic half-timber framing.
Hugo Eberhardt bought the hotel over 100 years ago and would have been at least as proud as we are ourselves to see the Rad now in the hands of the 4th generation!