Today in history (1872) famed pianist Professor Carl Rudolph Hermann Friedeberg (or von Friedeberg) was born in Germany. He had a long career as a performer, first performing under one of my favorites, Mahler, and as a teacher- first in Europe and then at the precursor to Juilliard, where he instructed many great pianists of the 20th century. He was a great friend of Johannes Brahms and particularly known for playing Brahms' music.
Though I do not know anything about this Friedeberg's house, I do know about some of his cousins' houses and design style. We believe him to be the second cousin of my Prussian great-grandfather Emil Friedeberg-Seeley; though this could be the wrong degree (as with all of the following relations), we are assured they are cousins. The double barrel name comes from his marriage to my British great-grandmother. The von Friedeberg, not to be confused with von Furstenberg, family was ennobled in the 19th century or perhaps earlier and were rulers in Prussia. However, by the time of the World Wars, Prussia ceased to exist and my family began going by Seeley only- fully British and living in London.
Above was the family house in Stettin. You can see the Friedebergs up on the balcony to the right if you look closely. This house has a lovely classical architectural style and was referred to as "Villa Friedeberg." My great-grandparents were married in and moved to London, where my grandfather was born, but made frequent trips back here and my grandfather went to boarding school here before coming to America and graduating with a doctorate in sociology from The University of Chicago. Below is the family house in London where their wedding took place, Bickenhall Mansions.
These mansions span entire floors and have original architectural details preserved in many of the rooms, as shown on a listing below. Love the bright blue door and gates against the red brick facade.
The family purchased a house in Hampstead, London, where my grandfather grew up, shown below. I believe we have some pictures of him here but will have to dig those out and add them to this post later.
This house is definitely reminiscent of the Bickenhall Mansions and is actually only about 10 minutes away, just on the other side of the London Zoo. We only recently found these exact addresses and I need to visit on my next trip to England this Christmas. We are going to meet my new (born yesterday!) niece on my husband's side of the family but will get to visit my British cousins as well. My grandfather had two brothers who never left London. You can see below how he was exactly like the grandfather in The Parent Trap- he never lost his British accent despite going to "uni" and to live permanently in America and never stopped wearing those three piece suits every day.
The next Friedebergs are ones we have lost track of the relationship of but who certainly have style and are cousins of some sort. One is Pedro Friedeberg, a famous surrealist artist whose iconic hand chairs you may recognize. His name was Peter (like my dad) but he changed it to Pedro upon moving to Mexico as you do. Our Friedeberg family was eccentric and looks as though this branch certainly was too. Pedro is quite the surrealist as seen from the following photos of his house via Architectural Digest.
You can definitely see a family resemblance in these Friedebergs.
The next photo, from another piece on Pedro by Architectural Digest, shows one of the chairs in a room filled with antiques. We may just need one to mix with our own antiques...
Lastly is another Friedeberg cousin we discovered on a blog similar to ours which looks into family history by a Friedeberg descendant, called Hoeber: A Family Over Three Centuries.
The linked article has all the details on the artist who painted Bernhardine Friedeberg's 19th century portrait. The painter, Moritz Oppenheim, was very esteemed and hired to paint many of the von Rothschild's portraits, specifically the five famous brothers who headed each European bank. So there is our little history of houses and decor from VF to VR!