History

Johan Peter Suhr, a grandson of the oldest Danish member of the Suhr family, started his apprenticeship in 1728 with a flax merchant whose shop was on Gammeltorv, right where the Suhr estate is located today. Johan Peter Suhr married the flax merchant’s daughter, and at the death of his father in law in 1749 he took over the business, which, for the following 150 years, was known as the commercial house of “J.P. Suhr & Son”.

After the estate burned down during the great fire of 1795, the present building on Gammeltorv was constructed.

The commercial house suffered great losses at the national bankruptcy in 1813, but later became one of the greatest commercial houses of the time under the management of Johannes Theodorus Suhr. In the 1850’s he acquired the estates of Bonderup and Merløsegård among others.

Johannes Theodorus Suhr had no descendants of his marriage with Caroline Falch, and decided that a vast majority of his fortune was to be tied up in a foundation, primarily investing in real estate.

The Suhr Foundation activities started in 1859