St Peter-Ording's pile buildings celebrate 100 years

By Hilke Segbers Jul 26, 2011, 3:06 GMT

St Peter-Ording, Germany - The German North Sea resort of St Peter-Ording is best known for its unique pile buildings, which stand on wooden posts along the coast to protect them from winter storms and spring floods while also offering visitors superb sea views.

Today, St Peter-Ording is among the ten most popular holiday destinations in Germany, but according to local records, the first tourists only really began arriving in 1838 in search of the sandy stretch of beach situated at the end of the Eiderstedt peninsula, on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

The numbers grew quickly and by 1877, the Strandhotel was the first hotel in the area to begin catering for the influx. By the end of the 19th century, the number of tourists descending on St Peter-Ording led to concerns about how the beach would cope, not least because men and women still bathed separately and mobile cabins were in vogue.

Subsequently, permanent huts began to be built where people could change, bathing attendants could work from and refreshments could be sold. The buildings also offered protection against the highly changeable weather on Germany's northern coast. The huts weren't protected against the water, however, and often sank into the sea following storms.

In 1911, the first pile building was constructed on a sand bank with access only possible by swimming through a narrow channel or paying a local fisherman a penny to get there by boat.

The huts were called 'Giftbude,' the name given to houses in northern Germany where drinks are sold, usually alcohol.

The posts holding up the buildings go down about five metres into the ground, while the restaurants stand up to eight metres above the sand. The seemingly endless beach runs to a length of 12 kilometres and is 2 kilometres in width, making it a real bathing and sporting paradise for everyone, including naturists as there are also special nudist beaches.

St Peter-Ording attracts approximately 250,000 visitors per year, who clock up around 2.3 million overnight stays. Not surprisingly, a single pile building is no longer sufficient to provide for the huge number of tourists, and the number has risen to 15 such structures with five bathing areas.

The Seekiste pile building restaurant in an area called Boehl opened in 1956 and has been renovated in recent years with the addition of a large outside terrace where tender lamb, shrimps and freshly caught fish are on the menu.

The Strandhuette restaurant is due to be completed by late summer where the proprietors intend to offer snacks and cakes during the day and run Axels Restaurant by night. The Sansibar Arche Noah, which opened its doors in April, is a 1.2-kilometre walk along the sea dike and has already established a reputation for quality food.

The pile buildings in Ording fit the sporting atmosphere of the beach, where kite surfers and land-yacht racers are at home.

Strandbar 54° Nord was given a recent makeover and specialises in home-made waffles, while the more rustic Silbermoeve in Ording-Nord looks just as it did in the 1970s.