Step outside on a Tuesday morning and the only sounds are the chickens from the farm two fields over and the wind moving through the fruit trees at the edge of your pond. No traffic. No neighbors pressed up against your fence line. Just 12,069 square meters of Lower Saxony countryside doing exactly what it's supposed to do—making you exhale. That's what life at Schapener Straße 40 actually feels like.
This is a rare find, and not in the vague way that phrase gets thrown around. A 300 m² main residence with seven bedrooms, a fully self-contained guesthouse, a horse walker, a converted workshop, a pond, mature fruit trees, and an energy label A rating—all on over 1.2 hectares in the Emsland district of northwestern Germany. Properties like this don't come up often. When they do, they tend to go quickly.
The house itself was built in 1930, which gives it the kind of solid bones you can't manufacture—thick walls, generous ceiling heights, a sense of permanence. A full renovation in 1996 brought it firmly into the modern era, and the current owners have kept the upgrades coming. The kitchen was completely redone in 2022 with built-in appliances and a layout that actually works for feeding a crowd. In 2025, 42 solar panels and a hybrid heat pump were installed alongside a 300-liter hybrid boiler, pushing the property's energy consumption to just 49.9 kWh per square meter per year. For a house this size, that's a genuinely impressive number.
The ground floor layout makes sense from the moment you walk in. The entrance hall opens to a living room with French doors that push out onto a covered veranda—a spot that earns its keep in every season, whether you're drinking coffee and watching frost settle on the meadow in January or eating dinner outside while the June light lingers until 10 p.m. Three bedrooms sit on the ground floor alongside a bathroom fitted in 2011 with a walk-in shower, double vanity, and wall-mounted toilet. Upstairs, four more bedrooms and a second bathroom, renovated in 2012, handle larger family configurations or long-term guests with ease. A retractable staircase leads to a loft that doubles as serious storage space.
The guesthouse deserves its own paragraph. Completed in 2025 and completely self-contained, it features a large main bedroom, a living space with an open kitchen, a second bedroom accessible by a fixed internal staircase, and a bathroom with double sinks and walk-in shower. The herringbone PVC flooring and underfloor heating make it feel finished—not like an afterthought. If you're planning to use this property as a vacation home and want to host friends or family without everyone living on top of each other, this solves that problem entirely. It could also function as a rental unit, a home office setup, or accommodation for a caretaker.
For anyone with horses, or anyone who's been wanting horses, the setup here is ready. A horse walker with roughly a 15-meter diameter, a generously sized meadow, and a former stable that's been converted into a large workshop with toilet and substantial attic storage. The workshop is the kind of space that means different things to different people—a car enthusiast sees it one way, a woodworker another, someone who restores furniture or runs a small business another way entirely. It has electricity and running water, and it's substantial enough to be genuinely useful rather than decorative.
Spelle sits in the Emsland region, tucked into Germany's quieter northwest corner between Osnabrück and the Dutch border—roughly 30 kilometers from the Netherlands and within easy reach of Rheine. The Emsland itself is flat cycling country threaded with waterways, and the Dortmund-Ems Canal runs nearby, drawing boats in summer and walkers year-round. The town of Lingen, about 20 kilometers south, has a proper weekly market where local farmers sell Münsterland cheeses, asparagus in May and June, and strawberries through July. Rheine, 25 kilometers to the southeast, offers solid urban amenities—hospital, hypermarkets, a historic center around the Falkenhof museum—without the scale that starts to feel impersonal.
If you're coming from further afield, Münster Osnabrück International Airport is about an hour's drive, connecting to Frankfurt, Munich, and a growing list of European destinations. Amsterdam Schiphol is roughly two and a half hours by car, which matters for international buyers who want genuine flexibility.
Climate-wise, Emsland gets real seasons without extremes. Summers are mild and long, rarely pushing past 28°C, with enough rain to keep the gardens and meadows genuinely green. Winters are gray and quiet—temperatures hover around freezing but rarely drop into the brutal range. It's a climate that rewards slow country living rather than punishing it.
Practically speaking, the property runs on fiber optic internet, which matters if you're working remotely or want to rent the guesthouse to people who do. The solar panel system with four batteries (currently leased) keeps energy costs low. A septic tank handles waste management independently of municipal systems. Electric shutters, double glazing, and roof insulation mean the house holds its temperature in both directions.
For international buyers, Germany's property purchase process is transparent and well-structured. Transfer costs include 5% property transfer tax, around 3.3% broker's commission, and approximately 2% in notary fees—all standard for the region. Germany's legal framework for foreign buyers is open and clear, with no restrictions on non-EU nationals owning property. Rental income is taxed, but Germany's tax treaties with most countries prevent double taxation, and a local Steuerberater (tax advisor) in Rheine or Lingen can set up the right structure quickly.
Key features:
- 300 m² main house built in 1930, renovated 1996, continuously upgraded
- 7 bedrooms across ground and first floors with 2 modern bathrooms
- Brand-new self-contained guesthouse completed in 2025 with herringbone flooring and underfloor heating
- 12,069 m² plot with meadow, pond, and mature fruit trees
- Horse walker (approx. 15m diameter) and large converted workshop with electricity and water
- 42 solar panels and 4 batteries installed 2025 (currently leased)
- Hybrid heat pump and 300-liter hybrid boiler installed 2025
- Energy label A, 49.9 kWh/(m²·a) end energy consumption
- New kitchen installed 2022 with built-in appliances
- Fiber optic internet connection and mechanical ventilation throughout
- Covered veranda with open views across private gardens and meadows
- Detached stone storage building with electricity and running water
- Double glazing, roof insulation, and electric shutters
- 30 km from the Dutch border, approx. 1 hour from Münster Osnabrück Airport
- Transfer costs: 5% property transfer tax, 3.3% broker's commission, approx. 2% notary fees
This is the kind of property you either immediately understand or you don't. If you've been looking for real space—room for a big family, horses, a workshop, guests, a proper garden, a pond—without having to compromise one thing to get another, this is it. The Emsland countryside is underrated in the best possible way: unpretentious, genuinely rural, close enough to real infrastructure to be practical for full-time or part-time living.
If you're ready to see it in person, reach out to Homestra to arrange a viewing. A property covering this much ground, with this many uses already built in, deserves to be walked rather than just scrolled through. Come and see what 12,069 square meters of well-used German countryside actually looks like.
