Although Bebenhausen Palace was always intended to be quite private, Kings Karl I and Wilhelm II did not skimp on representational reception rooms in Bebenhausen Palace. They had several halls set up so that they could host large banquets.
Impression of the representational dining hall.
The "Blue Hall", originally the dining hall of the monastery's guest house, served the community of Bebenhausen as a winter church from 1832 to 1868. Accordingly, King Karl I of Württemberg had a dining hall constructed here again by architect August von Beyer by 1870. Beyer removed the galleries that had been added and had the original wall and ceiling paneling and doors from the 16th century cleaned of its old paint, repainted, and touched up.
The wall decor illustrates that Bebenhausen Palace was a hunting lodge.
King Karl I was no lover of hunting. Despite this, he had the dining hall decorated with hunting trophies in keeping with Bebenhausen's identity as a hunting lodge. The chandelier and the round table with its rich decoration of figures are copies of Renaissance furniture. King Karl I had the originals from a patrician house in Ulm, acquired for the Stuttgart Museum, copied. To complete the furnishing, elements from the Majolika collection of Duke Carl Eugen and a sword owed by Count Eberhard the Bearded were exhibited. The "display silver of Bebenhausen" was also sometimes presented here.
The color of the carpet gives the room its name.
The guest apartment that King Karl I had made up for his lover, Charles Woodcock Baron Savage, in the former abbot's kitchen, was removed by Wilhelm II. In 1915 and 1916, he had a new dining hall established here instead. A narrow spiral staircase made of iron tidily connects this hall with the palace kitchen in the story below. The room has since been called the Green Hall for the color of its carpet. In correspondence with the time, forms of late Historicism are mixed with early Art Nouveau works in the design of the space—something quite rare and special!
Murals based on designs by Julius Mössel, a decorative painter who was in high demand after the turn of the century.
