The 
Old district court resp. 
Novalishaus is first mentioned in the Tennstedt chronicle as a district office in 1657.
This district office became known far beyond the borders of Tennstedt when Coelestin August Just, a native of Merseburg, took up his post as district bailiff in this building in 1773.
At the time, District Officer Just was a highly educated yet sensitive lawyer. He was known for his exemplary and fair handling of difficult matters, including special assignments that went far beyond the scope of his office. As early as 1790, the district office in Tennstedt was the seat of the supreme judicial authority of Electoral Saxony's Thuringia.
The young Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg chose this office as his place of training and his first sphere of activity, as he had already studied law in Jena.
From 1794 to 1796, he trained as an administrator in the Electoral Saxon district office. Just was his teacher and fatherly friend.
“
I was supposed to be his teacher and guide, but he became my teacher."
This is what Just said about Hardenberg, praising him for the conscientiousness and ease with which the pupil carried out the work assigned to him.
Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg completed his training with Just in 1794. After the wars of liberation against Napoleon and Tennstedt's assignment to Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm III made an effort to recruit the well-known jurist, kept him in the office and appointed him First Government Councillor in Erfurt. He also gave the bailiff and his house a larger sphere of activity.
Even during the time of the district bailiff, his former pupil became known as 
"Novalis.
Novalis is considered an outstanding Romantic poet. In his honor, a memorial plaque was placed on the former district office in 1894. The new district court in Bahnhofstraße replaced the former district office as the seat of justice. It was later converted into a residential building.
Today, the building offers the observer an uninviting sight. Back in the possession of the town of Bad Tennstedt, initial preparations are currently underway to comprehensively secure and renovate the building.