"You need a bit of stubbornness": Club saves historic cobbler's house on a Bavarian lake

Created: 02/10/2022 09:26

By: Oliver Menner

Max People Bauer, Chairman of the Association for Local History in Kochel am See.

© Klaus Haag

Through extensive restoration, an old cobbler's house has become a real gem again.

An association is campaigning for the old building.

Kochel am See - "Home", laughs Max Leutenbauer, "is a feeling for the region in which one likes to live and work and which makes one feel good." The 59-year-old (he is a forester by profession) is the association's chairman for local history in Kochel, and he campaigned for a jewel that perfectly symbolizes this interplay of home, work and well-being: the old shoemaker's house in Kochel.

In 2014, four years after the last resident, Schöfmann Sepp, died of old age and childless, the municipality acquired the property from the late 16th century.

It was to become a museum, partly with the financial help of the German Foundation for Monument Protection through special-purpose income from the GlücksSpirale social lottery.

Since 1647 the house was a place of shoemaking.

The brick basement dates from the late 16th century.

Kochel am See: "The bureaucracy was the real problem"

For almost ten years, the association has "researched and documented the history of use, we wrote applications for funding and brooded over a museum concept," explainsleutenbauer.

In autumn 2018 the restoration of the building, which was affected by damp and rot, began.

"Cluttering, archiving, inventory, change of use.

The roof truss was repaired, the roof half covered... The real problem was not so much the construction work as the bureaucracy.

All the paperwork.

"You need perseverance and a bit of stubbornness," grins Leutenbauer.

It was therefore "really lucky" that the association was able to quickly and easily access the grants from the Monument Protection Foundation (a total of 130,000 euros, of which 50,000 alone came from the special-purpose income accruing to the foundation from the GlücksSpirale social lottery).

"A huge help." And there is still work to be done.

The association intends to use the 80 square meter threshing floor for temporary exhibitions, readings and concerts in the near future.

The former stable as a small café, the former sales room as a museum shop.

The workshop of the old shoemaker's house in Kochel am See.

© Klaus Haag

Monument protection supported by GlücksSpirale

Everyone wins at GlücksSpirale: not just the players.

In the Free State of Bavaria, the proceeds from the GlücksSpirale social lottery go to the German Olympic Sports Confederation, the Federal Working Group for Independent Welfare, the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the Bavarian Nature Conservation Fund.

These non-profit organizations support a large number of projects in the Free State of Bavaria with the help of funds from the GlücksSpirale.

Preserving monuments as living witnesses to our history has been supported by the GlücksSpirale social lottery nationwide for over 30 years with over 545 million euros.