Goethe House

The Goethe House in the old town of Frankfurt am Main was the family Residence of the Goethe family, most notably Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, until 1795. Johann Wolfgang was himself born here in 1749 to his parents, Johann Caspar Goethe, a lawyer, and Katherine Elisabeth Textor, daughter of the mayor (Burgermeister) of Frankfurt. Johann Wolfgang lived here along with his sister Cornelia until 1765, aged sixteen, when he moved to Leipzig to study law, returning sporadically thereafter.

The house was bought in 1733 by Goethe's grandmother, Cornelia Goethe, a guest house hostess. It was in fact originally two houses, dating from around 1600 in typical medieval wooden-fronted style, until 1755, when Goethe's father extensively remodeled and modernized them into the single structure we see today. Goethe writes in his autobiography that his father was careful to preserve the double overhang of the facade, which was not permitted in new buildings under the codes of 1719 and 1749, emphasizing that it was a remodeling of the existing structures and not a new construction.