Art stele Ferdinand Avenarius

In 1903, a house with a rather distinctive exterior – half Frisian style, half Black Forest idyll – was built in Kampen. The owner, Ferdinand Avenarius, was as creative as the architectural style. It was through him that many artists first came to Kampen – and quite a few of them, such as Stefan Zweig and Carl Zuckmayer, lived or met in his house, "Uhlenkamp." The son of a bookseller and stepnephew of the famous composer Richard Wagner, Avenarius initially began studying natural sciences in Leipzig and later studied philosophy, literature, and art history in Zurich. In 1882, Ferdinand Avenarius settled in Dresden, where five years later he became co-founder and editor of the magazine "Kunstwart," which had a lasting influence on the education of its time.
From 1903 onwards, Avenarius spent most of his summers in Kampen. His house, "Uhlenkamp" – from the homeowner's study, the owner could see as far as the Kampen bird hide – had several special features. For example, it had a wraparound balcony on the first floor, allowing Avenarius to read and write outside all day in the sunshine. Furthermore, a tub, invisible from the outside, was built into the thatched roof for naked sunbathing. When the Swiss painter Ernst Kreidolf visited Avenarius in 1906, he noted: "The walls of the house were paneled with cedar wood from flotsam and jetsam. A barrel of wine from flotsam and jetsam was also in the house. It must have been in the water for some time, as its contents had already acquired a somewhat sea-like flavor. During my stay, we talked about art and other serious and beautiful things, as was natural for Ferdinand Avenarius, this fine, highly cultured man." The landscape was particularly dear to the heart of the first honorary citizen of the municipality of Kampen. Together with other campaigners, he was able to prevent the removal of earth from the Morsum Cliff for the construction of the Hindenburg Dam and the development of the landscape around Kampen. "There is nothing as beautiful as Kampen anywhere on the North Sea. It still is. But build a single house outside the village on the heath or even in the dunes, and the expanse is destroyed, the originality is gone," warned Ferdinand Avenarius. When he died of pneumonia in 1923, Avenarius knew his fight had not been in vain: just a few months before his death, the first nature reserves were designated on Sylt.