DenkArt

Back home after our trip to Japan, we had lots of ideas for the third construction phase on the "reserve plot" we had just purchased: 

Our "DenkArt building" and the Japanese garden. 

From today's perspective, it was courageous to build an expensive building with over 400 square meters of conference space, a large lobby, underground parking and only one hotel room (for one seminar leader) to build.

At the opening ceremony in 1999, a competent and long-standing companion asked us who was going to fill all these rooms? Wouldn't the financial risk be too high? We quickly proved him wrong! 

We finally had a room with over 220 square meters of floor space for larger events. Parliamentary seating for up to 80 people, cinema seating for up to 180 guests, also suitable for product presentations, even a car can drive right up to the stage - and for small in-house exhibitions.

The largest conference room was designed so that TV programs could also be produced in it. 

For two years, I hosted the live program "ProFit" for Franken Fernsehen, in which start-up entrepreneurs were awarded prizes by the viewers in front of the screens via TED voting. Nicole Heidemann, who had just finished her business studies, was out and about as a trend scout in the Nuremberg metropolitan region to find the most exciting start-ups for our program, which she always managed to do. An exciting experience for us with great after-show parties.

The center of the building is the lobby with a sushi band, (Renate's idea!) on which the snacks are circulated during the coffee breaks. From the very beginning until today, we prepare all coffee specialties on Italian portafilter machines and do not force our guests to use thermos flasks with filter coffee that is often kept warm for far too long.

The highlight around the new building was and is our Japanese garden with seven varieties of bamboo, Japanese cherry and maple trees and beautiful pine trees, (with their roots above the ground) a real and a "dry" waterfall (made of stones) and a 1.80 m deep pond with koi, some of which have been around for many years. (The garden was designed with great attention to detail by Renate Schnobrich, who studied garden architecture in Japan).

Despite the higher costs, we had large trees installed by crane because we wanted the garden to look as if it had been there forever. And we succeeded!

Another great success with high capacity utilization!

Nicole and her ryokan - the fourth stage of construction!

Our daughter Nicole came to us straight after the Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne and the two obligatory internships in Ascona and Dublin as a freshly bachelorette (her diploma subject: "The role of corporate culture") back home.

She didn't actually want to go home straight away, but had already signed a contract with the hip boutique hotel "One Aldwich" in London's Theatre District, but Renate and I were able to "lure her away from there with a decoy!" 

We offered her the opportunity to build a hotel complex on the vacant plot behind the Japanese garden and promised her a completely free hand. This is how her "baby", her ryokan, was born. (word for traditional Japanese inn)

She opted for Bauhaus architecture with clear forms and flat roofs and a "warm minimalism" in the rooms. (Nicole's neologism!) The beds are by Culti from Milan, the bathrooms by Philippe Starck. She designed some of the furniture herself. And 24 students from the Nuremberg Art Academy were each given the same (modest) sum of money to present their art in the rooms, on the terraces or in the garden. This is how the 24 hotel rooms were created in 2021, which have always been booked out first ever since!

The first big success for Nicole. More followed!

Production kitchen & creative workshop

And once again, we were able to acquire another neighboring building with additional building land in 2008! This time it was our direct neighbor, the Bär bakery, which had baked in this building for decades and also supplied us with bread and rolls for many years.

We built a modern production kitchen into the spacious bakery. Additional cooling and storage rooms were created. We also built a large scullery on the new site, which was attached directly to the original Schindlerhof. 

We built a small cooking school/test kitchen in the former bakery store!

Overall, this coup enabled us to more than triple our kitchen space as well as our cooling and storage facilities! On top of that, my new office was created on the top floor with four workstations and plenty of space for planning and thinking. 

For the very first time, we undertook a costly construction project that was not really a profit center, but made the working conditions of our "human stars" much easier. This is still paying off today!

The final repayment for this property was agreed for just 10 years, so that by 2013 we had already paid off half of it, our equity ratio had risen again and we could finally start integrating and building on the remaining undeveloped plot.

Wine shop

For 29 years, we didn't have a bar, just a tiny buffet between the individual dining rooms. From these eight square meters, the entire restaurant - and in summer also the garden - was supplied with drinks. The productivity in this tiny space was certainly sensational - but the work was laborious.

So we decided to build a vinotheque with walk-in wine cabinets in glass, additional cooling and storage areas and a proper bar with an additional 35 seats plus a large roof terrace (with heated sofas for the smokers) to build.

The construction of a passenger elevator from the vinotheque to the barn on the first floor proved to be particularly complex, as it required major structural changes to the listed Schindlerhof. However, with the help of the monument protection authorities, we were finally able to provide disabled access. 

Since then, the number of wedding celebrations in our hall has risen sharply, (permanently to over 100 every year) as larger family celebrations are usually attended by very elderly relatives who can no longer climb stairs so easily.