Petersgaard

Peter Johansen's estate and dockyard

Petersgaard is one of 12 estates that were created when Vordingborg Cavalry District was sold at auction in 1774. Estate No. 12 was given the name Kalhave and sold to the merchant and shipowner Peter Johansen. He renamed it Petersgaard and constructed a main building on the land in 1776–1780. He created a thriving agricultural estate and also established a dockyard, which was given the name Petersværft.^[1]

Changing owners

Peter Johansen died on the estate in 1798, and his heirs sold it to the Crown the following year. The Crown embarked on the process of implementing the agricultural reforms of the time on the estate. Petersgaard, without the surrounding forests, was sold to Jacob Bentzon Resch. It was difficult times for Danish agriculture, and he had to sell the estate in 1810. The new owner was Christian Wulff, a grandson of Peter Johansen. He sold it to Michael Conrad Fabritius de Tengnagel, the occupant of the Iselinske Fideikommis,^[2] who refurbished the buildings. His widow, Nana Felicia Augusta Fabritius de Tengnagel, née Bilsted, stayed on the estate after his death in 1849 and married Hans Ditmar Frederik Feddersen in 1855. In 1864, the year after the death of her second husband, she sold Petersgaard to Peder Brønnum Scavenius. It was passed on to his son of the same name after his death in 1868.

Sihr and Juel

In 1870, Scavenius Kr- sold it to the wealthy merchant Ole Bernt Suhr, who had already purchased the Petersgaard forests from the state two years earlier. His daughter Ida Marie Suhr and son-in-law Jørgen Peter Bech took over Petersgaard after his death in 1876. They were part of the clientele that met at Brøndums Hotel each year and socialized with artists such as Michael and Anna Ancher, the violinist Karen Falck and her husband Gustav Falck and Jenny Falck.

After Ida Marie Suhr's death in 1938, Petersgaard was endowed to her relative Jens Iuel and his wife Clara, née Treschow. Their son Knud Rudolf Iuel inherited Petersgaard in 1948.