Mad-in-Israel

Hi,
We been to Sarona Park many times, as well as the Market next to it, but never took the tour. Today we bike there with the kids and finally been there.

The park holds 36 preserved houses that lasted from the German Templer colony from Ottoman Palestine. Most of the buildings now holds restaurants and shops,

But two are left as a museum: The original olive oil press (that tells the story of the colony and the building itself) and the house of Baldenhofer family that used as a museum in which each room tells the story of a different era of the colony.

You can enter almost any building in the Park, but the two above, if you enter the restaurant or the shop even for a look. But the tour also let you in to an underground tunnel that connects two building that used to be wineries during the Templers time.

Take Care
Gad

Sarona Park visitor center building, which is not a preserved building

The map of the Sarona Park on the visitor center building

Olive oil press

The olive press belonging to the Pflugfelder family operated here between
1912 and 1938 in a farm building made of sandstone. The original hydraulic
press made by Fritz Müller is preserved intact in the building; it was used
in Europe to produce oil from seeds and grains and was converted here to
oil production from olives. An oil production system that included a crushing machine and another stone press were powered by a German Deutz motor and a
transmission system. In the last decades of the 20th century, the pre-
army Israel Defense Forces Mechanics School operated in the building, in
collaboration with the Israel Military Industries and the Amal educational
network of the Histadrut (General Federation of Labor in Israel). The old
machinery of the olive press was put back into use as part of the preservation
project. Preservation and renewed use of the olive press: Ran Hedvati and
the preservation workshop team of Kibbutz Ein Shemer.

The parts of the olive oil press inside the building and the short video about Sarona Park (about 7 minutes)

The machinery inside the oil mill — A machine to primary crushing the olives

The machinery inside the olive oil press

Olive oil extraction explanation sign inside the building

Olive types sign in the building

the underground kurkar tunnel

The winery from which the tunnel start and now hold shops and underground whiskey bar

The underground tunnel chiseled in the Kurkar stone

A crack meter inside the underground tunnel

An underground room along the tunnel

The underground winery hall, now the private room in Claro restaurant. In late 1947, the Hagana transformed Sarona’s winery cellars into a clandestine aircraft restoration workshop. They procured twenty non-operational Auster planes, which were secretly moved to Camp Yehoshusa. Of those, fifteen were successfully restored, effectively doubling the operational fleet.

The stairs climbing up from the underground tunnel and halls

The other winery now holds Claro restaurant

the sarona park museum

House of Baldenhofer family which is now the museum. It was built at the end of the 19th century. Carl Baldenhofer was an engineer in the factory of the Wagner brothers. After the founding of the state, the Ministry of Police and Minorities was located in this building and, in 1949, the Israel State Archive was founded
and located here, as was the Prime Ministers Library. In the 1950s it was
used by the Shin Bet security service.

Washing boiler (Waschkessel) outside the basement of the house

The entrance to the museum

The basement floor of the museum tells the story of the preservation of the Templer buildings in Sarona

The colony before the preservation

Architectural documentation, in preparation for Sarona preservation work

Winds of progress | Framing, Industry, Trade – 1921-1933

The twilight of the Sarona Templer colony – 1933-1945

Posters from the British Mandate time

Cooperation and struggle | British Camp – 1941-1947

Sovereignty begins | IDF headquarters - 1947

Sovereignty begins | IDF headquarters – 1947

In late 1947, the Hagana transformed Sarona’s winery cellars into a clandestine aircraft restoration workshop. They procured twenty non-operational Auster planes, which were secretly moved to Camp Yehoshusa. Of those, fifteen were successfully restored, effectively doubling the operational fleet.