The Franzenhof has evidently been owned by the family since the 17th century at least. Since then, numerous generations have endeavoured to maintain the inheritance and to adapt it to present requirements. Many people have lived and worked on the farm up to the late fifties: The whole family mucked in, also the young children had to help and assisted in milking the cows in the morning before school. Servants and farm girls, unmarried family members and even a family of refugees that had found refuge on the farm worked from morning to night. Day labourers from the village also helped during the harvest and in the forest. But gradually the workers moved to the aspiring factories near Lake Constance where they could earn more and human labour was replaced by machines. The first tractor with a wood carburettor caused a sensation during the war. Tractors, threshing machines and milking machines arrived on the farm. Bulls moved in the stables.

Until the end of 2010, the agricultural company consisting of dairy cattle, farming, forestry and distillery yielded the principal income. The decision that we took in 1993, after the birth of our sons, to build up a second source of income by running first two holiday flats proved to be a stroke of luck. Firmly tied to the farm by dairy cattle, we brought the whole wild world to our farm and discovered our passion for hospitality. The fire in the cow stables in summer 1994, which had first represented a catastrophe and huge challenge, then offered us the chance to expand our second source of income “Urlaub auf dem Bauernhof” by constructing the new building for our holiday flats in 1998.

Low milk prices, an outdated milking machine and missing prospects for the future forced us to give up dairy farming in 2010. A small herd of suckler cows still lived in the large cow stable until the end of 2017.

In the early 2000s, we took the chance to erect photovoltaic systems on our roofs and today, we could cover our energy needs autonomously.

The next challenge to take now is the organisation of future succession on the farm and you can be keen to see how the next generation will approach this task.