Johann Wolfgang Goethe is said to have been familiar with the garden, even though he already lived in Weimar, and to have praised it highly. In 1815 he dedicated his poem Ginkgo Biloba to his inamorata Marianne von Willemer of Frankfurt – with a leaf from the Salzwedel ginkgo. Georg Friedrich Metzler, a member of the famous bankers’ family and the brother of Wilhelm Peter, purchased the grounds and the villa in 1851. In 1855 he had a garden house built in the park, the so-called Schweizer Haus, where concerts and plays were performed. The garden itself was re-landscaped as a rose garden.