- Merseburg main station: 5 Min. zu Fuß
- Tram line 5: 2 Min. zu Fuß
- Entenplan market: 4 Min. zu Fuß
- Cathedral and castle garden: 10 Min. zu Fuß
- Leuna chemical park: 10 Min. mit dem Auto
- Dow Schkopau: 12 Min. mit dem Auto
- Merseburg University: 8 Min. mit dem Auto
- Carl von Basedow Hospital: 5 Min. mit dem Auto
- Halle (Saale): 15 Min. mit der Bahn
- Leipzig/Halle Airport: 30 Min. mit dem Auto
- Leipzig city centre: 40 Min. mit dem Auto
Why we exist
There is a gap between a workers’ hostel and a hotel. We live in it.
At any given moment, people are working in Merseburg, Leuna and Schkopau who are not from here: project engineers, interim managers, secondees from international operators, installation crews during plant turnarounds, visiting researchers at the university, doctors on rotation at the hospital.
Two options exist for them. One costs fifteen euros per bed per night and asks you to share a bathroom in return. The other is a hotel room at a hundred euros where, after four weeks, you no longer know what day it is.
We are building the third. A real apartment, with your own door, your own kitchen and your own balcony, invoiced to the company, from one month, with a contact who has a name and a direct line.
We own the building. We developed it, refurbished it and let it ourselves. There is no head office in Berlin deciding whether your team may extend by two weeks.
How you live here
Four things that make the difference.
The living room
Not a room. An apartment.
The difference decides itself in month three. A hotel room is a place where you wait. An apartment is a place where you live: with a dining table that seats three, a sofa you do not have to fold away, and a door between work and sleep.
The kitchen
Hob, oven, fridge, crockery.
Fully equipped here means: you could cook for four tonight without buying anything except food. Nobody staying six months wants to eat out for six months, and the weekly market at Entenplan is a four-minute walk away.
The balcony
Two balconies, mostly facing south.
Above the rooftops of the old town, looking out at your own copper roof. Most units have two, one for breakfast, one for the end of the day. On a stay of months, outdoor space is not an extra; it is the difference between living somewhere and being housed there.
The penthouse
Seven cabins under a timber shell.
At the top, walls and ceiling meet in a curve, lined entirely in solid timber. Seven sleeping cabins, one long table, two bathrooms with two showers. For turnaround work it is the most efficient unit in the house: seven people, one invoice, one access code.
The units
From a studio to seven bedrooms.
Studio
One-room apartment
The quietest unit in the house. For people who work here during the week and travel home at weekends.
- 1 bedroom
- 2 guests
- 1 bath
Loft S
Loft with one bedroom and living room
Sleeping and living separated. Two balconies. This is where the room ends and the apartment begins.
- 1 bedroom
- 4 guests
- 1 bath
- 2 balconies
Loft M
Loft with two bedrooms and living room
Two bedrooms, a generous living room, floor-to-ceiling glazing onto the south terrace. Unit 114 is air conditioned.
- 2 bedrooms
- 3 guests
- 1 bath
- 2 balconies
Loft L
Loft with three bedrooms
Three doors of your own. The most-booked unit for project teams working the same plant for weeks.
- 3 bedrooms
- 3 guests
- 1 bath
- 2 balconies
Loft XL
Loft-style with four bedrooms and living room
Four bedrooms around a generous living and dining area. Its own washing machine.
- 4 bedrooms
- 4 guests
- 1 bath
- 2 balconies
Penthouse
Loft with seven bedrooms and living/dining area
The top level. Seven cabins under a curved timber shell, one long table, panoramic windows over the town.
- 7 bedrooms
- 7 guests
- 2 baths
- 2 balconies
The name
A copper roof is orange on the first day and green after that.
The barrel-vaulted roof above Gotthardstraße 39 was once as copper-red as freshly drawn wire. Today it is green, not painted, but oxidised. The patina is not ageing; it is a protective layer. It forms by itself and keeps the metal beneath it watertight for decades.
The two colours of this website are exactly those two states of the same material. We did not choose them, we read them off the building. Living under this roof means living in a house built from solid timber, with studio windows facing south and a fabric that is demonstrably ecological.
What is included
Everything that comes with it.
None of this is an add-on package. What is in the apartment is in the apartment, electricity, water, heating and Wi-Fi are included in the price. Copper-coloured items are services booked separately. Dashed outlines mark what we are still building and cannot offer yet.
In the apartment
- Fully equipped kitchen
- Bathroom with tub
- Work desk
- Wi-Fi in every unit
- South balcony or terrace
- Bed linen and towels
In the building
- Lift
- Underground parking
- Free laundry room
- Tumble dryer
- Step-free access
- Tea kitchen
Bookable extras
- Cleaning service
- Linen change
Planned
- Meal service from 2027
- Fitness area from 2027
- residential units in the building
- 0 residential units in the building
- minutes on foot to the main station
- 0 minutes on foot to the main station
- minutes by car to the Leuna chemical park
- 0 minutes by car to the Leuna chemical park
- month minimum stay
- 0 month minimum stay
Where you are
A town far older than it looks.
Merseburg is first read as an industrial location: Leuna since 1916, Buna in Schkopau since 1936. That is true, and it is only the second half of the story.
Ten minutes on foot from the front door stands a cathedral whose foundation stone was laid in 1015 and which was consecrated in 1021 in the presence of Emperor Henry II. It also forms the fourth wing of the castle, an ensemble that exists nowhere else in Germany in this form. In that cathedral’s library lie the Merseburg Charms: two Old High German incantations from the tenth century, the only surviving texts in which the pre-Christian Germanic gods appear undisguised.
And then there is everything within forty minutes: a 636-metre graduation tower, a lake of nineteen square kilometres where lignite was mined until 1993, a theatre opened by Goethe, and in Halle the oldest known depiction of the night sky in the world.
Cold inhalation hall, Bad Dürrenberg
In the spa park stands a hall where brine is atomised every half hour. You walk in, breathe for twenty minutes and walk out. It costs nothing, takes no time, and after a week of plant air you notice the difference.
Graduation tower, Bad Dürrenberg
Germany’s longest continuous graduation tower: 636 metres of blackthorn brushwood, twelve metres high, with brine trickling down it since 1763. You walk alongside it as you would alongside a cathedral made of thicket. It hosted the 2024 state garden show.
Lake Geiseltal
Almost nineteen square kilometres of water where lignite was mined until 1993, the largest body of water in the Central German Lake District. A circular path for cycling and running, the Mücheln marina, beaches at Frankleben and Stöbnitz, remarkably clear water. Vines grow on the reclaimed southern slope.
Brine spa, Bad Lauchstädt
A sauna and wellness park fed by thermal brine. The outdoor pool carries so much salt that you lie in it rather than swim. Themed saunas, a hammam and steam rooms alongside. The classic Sunday after a hard week.
Frequently asked
What guests want to know first.
What is the minimum stay?
One month is the rule, and there is no upper limit, some residents have been here for several years. Shorter stays are possible though: from two weeks we will put together an individual offer, particularly when several people arrive at once. Three weeks for ten people works for both sides. Below two weeks we are not the right provider, and we would rather say so beforehand than afterwards.
How far is the Leuna chemical park?
About five kilometres, roughly ten minutes by car. Dow Schkopau is around twelve minutes. Tram line 5 stops two minutes’ walk from the building and runs in both directions: Halle-Ammendorf via Schkopau and Leuna through to Bad Dürrenberg.
Can I be invoiced through my company?
Yes. We invoice the company, with a cost centre if you give us one. For allocations we combine several people into a single collective invoice.
Is there parking?
A lockable space in the underground garage belongs to every apartment. Not a space somewhere in the building, an assigned, lockable one.
Who does the laundry?
In principle you do, in the house laundry room, where washing machines and dryers are free to use. Some units have their own machine. If you would rather not, add the cleaning service: apartment cleaned, bed linen and towels changed, on a weekly cycle.
Can I register my address here?
Yes. For stays longer than six months registration is in fact mandatory in Germany. We issue the landlord confirmation required under § 19 of the Federal Registration Act as part of moving in, it is not a special request you have to chase.