In 1951 the town had to renovate the hotel which had now been cleared of all occupants and was extremely dilapidated within the options available at that time. Changing tenants, the dilapidated state of the hotel and financial misery of people after the war, who could no longer afford to go on holiday, did not make the relaunch easy. However, the then provost, Kai Uwe von Hasse, was successful in selling the hotel to the Alt-Hamburg parish in October 1952 for 88,000 Marks.

There were long drawn-out negotiations over the use of the building by the parish. One option was a children’s home for children suffering from asthma. Several rooms were reconfigured in the building so that 90 beds were available plus 31 beds under the roof for youth camps. The house was now called “Mathias Claudius Heim” and was used exclusively as a recreation center for adults and families belonging to the Protestant Church and as a conference venue from 1953 to 1972.
The building including the freehold was sold to Albrecht Vermögensverwaltung Gesellschaft (AVW) Buxtehude for four million Marks in 1997.