The History of the Hotel am Meer

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the seaside town of Binz has been transformed into a pearl of the German Baltic Sea. Just like the Hotel AM MEER & Spa.

Once an ugly, flat building dating from around the turn of the century, in 1991Wolfgang Schewe bought this first class building plot situated on the promenade in Binz.
He had the old building demolished and then he, together with the architect Klemens Perka, developed a concept for the building of the present new hotel.
Modern architecture should harmonise with the playful elements of the existing Baltic architecture,’ says Schewe.
After only 11 months of building, the Hotel AM MEER& Spa was ceremoniously opened on the 25th of  May 1995. Since that time the hotel has become one of the most well known hotels on Rügen.
The daring concept paid off! The hotel is, and will remain unique amongst the existing architecture of Binz, offering Binz a certain modernity, and guests welcome the stylish continuation throughout the hotel and its facilities.

Becoming an Hotelier

On the question of how university graduate Wolfgang Schewe, with a degree in engineering, became an hotelier, Rügen-born Schewe casually answers: ’That was simply intuition.’

Gut feelings, apparently, often helped him to follow the right direction.
In 1987 for example, when he was politically motivated to finally leave the former GDR and settle in West Berlin. This difficult time in his life helped to ‘form’ him and strengthened his desire to achieve.
In 1990, straight after the fall of the Berlin wall, he decided to return to his birthplace – his beloved, sunny island of Rügen, to become self employed.

One can guess that he must have been born with the gift of intuition. After all, a baker, as his father was, must develop a feeling for when a loaf of bread is good! However, it seems he learned less of a sense of intuition and rather more of a sense for business from his parents, who run a successful and well known bakery in Gingst!

Back to Rügen

He was to prove this sense for business when he returned to Rügen and ventured to start his own business. He founded a wholesale business without capital or special knowledge, dealing in Schöller ice cream and deep frozen products. Just 6 years later, his enterprise was so successful that he sold the business to Schöller, making a nice profit!

Finally, this was the foundation for his dreamed-of  hotel project, which he was able to realise after just one last excursion on his journey to becoming an hotelier.

Where the hotel is situated nowadays, he opened a music café called Sahara, which included an ice cream parlour and a small snack bar and for the following three years, between May and September, only the best live music could be heard.
‘When I look back on this chapter of my life, I can only wonder about myself!’
However, this experience led to the decision to finally realise his intention of opening a hotel.
One can only congratulate him.


Hotel AM MEER & Spa put to the Test

And today? Today he is the best hotel tester of his own hotel! Viewing everything with a critical eye, looking for constant improvement, examining and assessing his hotel on a daily basis, checking the quality of both restaurants: Fischküche and Düne, the furnishing and equipping of 60 rooms and the events going on in the piano bar Blue Café.

One of the most pleasant tasks, as a former active footballer and a leisure time sportsman, is to check on the fitness facilities and the hotel’s own wellness area. At the end of 2005, the 600m² large Vitality Spa was finally finished, housing numerous spa baths, saunas, treatment rooms and the Vitality pool.

What`s planned for the future?

Already, the busy hotel owner, Wolfgang Schewe has a new large project in mind.
Hopefully he will be able to make use of a plot to the rear of the hotel. What will emerge?

Only this can be revealed – the end of September will see the demolition of the shabby building there at the moment. What then? Using the words of Kaiser Franz Beckenbauer,(who, of course once stayed here!); ‘Schaun mer mal’ – wait and see!
One can be excited. One can be assured – only the best for his guests!