After Glienicke Palace had been built for his brother, Charles and Charlottenhof Palace for his brother, Frederick William IV, Prince William also strove to have his own residence built. He received support for this idea from Lenné, who wanted to turn the area around Potsdam into an artistic synthesis and saw the opportunity of landscaping the eastern end of the area, the Babelsberg, into a park and to incorporate it into the overall plan. In 1833 the thrifty King Frederick William III of Prussia gave his second son permission to lay out a garden and that same year Karl Friedrich Schinkel was given the contract to design a palace.
The system of paths envisaged by Lenné, with their views of the Potsdam countryside, was retained by Pückler-Muskau, but it was enhanced by a network of narrower paths. He enlarged the embankment and terrace at the palace with surrounding terraces. In the pleasure ground below the palace, started by his predecessor, curved promenade paths were laid out and the flower beds were decorated with borders of coloured pottery. A newly laid out Golden Rose Staircase (Goldene Rosentreppe) above the pleasure ground, which was planted with red and white roses, led down to the lakeshore. Lenné had planted large individual trees, but Pückler-Muskau placed younger ones close together, which encouraged one another to grow in height and improved the soil with their fallen leaves.
The terrain, which originally only covered an area of 72 hectares, increased in size over the course of time as a result of purchases and donations. In 1865 a considerable area south of the Babelsberg hill was added by Otto Kindermann, who after the death of his father, Ferdinand Kindermann, took over his court gardener’s post and dovetailed the new acquisitions of land harmoniously into the estate. In 1875 the park reached its present extent. During individual phases of the park’s development, artificial lakes were established. The Schwarze Meer and the water reservoir of the Achterbecken were laid out on the heights in the north, the Kindermannsee in the southwest and the Große See in the southeast.
Lenné drew the Böttcherberg hill of Berlin-Zehlendorf into the landscape garden of Babelsberg Park. The 66 metre high eminence lay very close by, separated only by the Glienicke Lake. An observation point was established on the hill with visual axes typical of Lenné’s work, leading to the lakes of Jungfernsee, Weißer See, Krampnitzer See and Griebnitzsee. Near the highest point is the semi-circular Loggia Alexandra, open to Babelsberg Park, which Prince Charles had built in 1869 in memory of his dead sister.
