Alvinghof House

The Alvinghof House is a listed building in Bösensell, a district of the municipality of Senden in the Coesfeld district of North Rhine-Westphalia.

First documented in 1381, Alvinghof was an irregular medieval water castle surrounded by a moat. In 1749, the princely vice-chancellor and archivist Friedrich Christian von und zur Mühlen acquired the property from the bankruptcy proceedings of Clemens August von Kerckerinck zur Borg, the Electoral Cologne chamberlain and canon in Münster and Paderborn. He commissioned Johann Conrad Schlaun for the new design, who had previously undertaken the renovation of the neighboring Ruhr House for the same client. In 1751, the gatehouse was demolished and the new building was constructed. The initial planning concept called for a building structure with a staircase protruding towards the courtyard, connected to the garden beyond the moat via a bridge. In a second planning phase, the rear facade was advanced and framed by latrines that emptied directly into the moat. Finally, in the execution design, the staircase was integrated into the house, thus simplifying the building shape significantly.

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