Up from this peek you have a beau­ti­ful extend­ed view over the land­scape. When you turn your head to the left, you can see on the east side the hilly region of the Fos­sil Shells and Keu­per banks, reach­ing up to the Moselle Riv­er. In the south (when you look straight before you) your sight is lim­it­ed by the com­pen­sa­tion­al for­est around the air­port, which dom­i­nates the view.

Before the air­port enlarge­ment the “Fran­zosen­grund” main­ly served for agriculture.

The enlarge­ment of the air­port area in the eight­ies of the 20^th cen­tu­ry did com­plete­ly change the ini­tial land­scape. The land­ing strip is sit­u­at­ed there where mead­ows, farm­land and pas­tures had once been. In a small val­ley, called “Fran­zosen­grund” there were the farms of the “Heit­er­hof” and the “Paris­er­hof”.

When the land­ing strip has been extend­ed the whole site had to get lev­elled and the whole “Fran­zosen­grund” val­ley had to dis­ap­pear togeth­er with its farms.

The “Höhenhof”

The “Fran­zosen­grund” and the “Heit­er­shof”

From the his­tor­i­cal point of view this farm had always been the most impor­tant build­ing of the Sen­ninger­berg. In the year 1381 the abbot Jean de Fels­berg of the Lux­em­bourg abbey bought a domain for the monks to devel­op, called the “Höhen­hof”. Imme­di­ate­ly after the pur­chase, 4 large fish ponds had been installed and in 1720 a fifth one had been added. The farm had been run by the fri­ars for at least 4 cen­turies and had been sold by auc­tion dur­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion as nation­al property.

One of the last pisc­tures of the “Heit­er­shof” before falling for the air­port enlargement.

Old pond at the Höhenhof.

n the year 1860 the Ellis and Philip­part com­pa­ny did buy the site. The Bel­gians used it to run an impor­tant dis­tillery. It was at that peri­od when the cas­tle was con­struct­ed­serv­ing as the director’s build­ing. Sev­er­al times after­wards the site changed its own­ers before it had final­ly been pur­chased by the com­pa­ny Hôtel Aero­golf in 1970, demol­ish­ing the build­ing in order to build a mod­ern hotel on that same place.

The “Höhen­hof” cas­tle where the hotel Aero­golf Sher­a­ton has been erected.

At the begin­ning of the eight­ies of the 20^th cen­tu­ry the “Fran­zosen­grund” had been banked up as the land­ing run­way had to get extended.