Schloss Charlottenhof is the smallest and most refined of the Sanssouci park palaces — a neoclassical villa designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1826 for Crown Prince Frederick William. Working within tight budget constraints, Schinkel converted an existing farmhouse and added a portico of Doric columns, creating what he described as a "Siam" — a rustic philosophical retreat in the Roman tradition. The result is a remarkably serene building, its white stucco and spare classical lines contrasting with the exuberance of the nearby Rococo palaces.
The interior decoration was designed by Schinkel's pupil Ludwig Persius and is equally restrained: stencilled patterns, Roman-style marble surfaces, and a tent room in the bedroom decorated with striped fabric draped from a central point. The palace sits at the southern end of Sanssouci Park, a fifteen-minute walk from Schloss Sanssouci, and is considerably less crowded. The surrounding Charlottenhof gardens, with their canal and fountains, were designed by Peter Joseph Lenné as an Italianate landscape.