In 1822, the town of Weinsberg gave the chief medical officer and poet Justinus Kerner a plot of land at the foot of the Burgberg, on which he had a single-storey house built. Subsequently, the estate was extended by adjoining plots of land with further buildings (including the so-called Geisterturm). Due to Kerner's great popularity and the hospitality of his wife Friederike, his residence quickly became a centre of attraction for the poets of Swabian Romanticism and other notable personalities of the 19th century. When Kerner died, his son Theobald took over the house. After his death, his widow sold the property in 1907 to the Justinus Kerner Society, founded in 1905, which opened it to the public a year later and has managed and looked after it ever since. In 1985/86, on the occasion of Justinus Kerner's 200th birthday, extensive renovation work was carried out with the aim of preserving an authentic and auratic place of remembrance.