Goethe acquired the garden house and garden in April 1776, a few months after his arrival in Weimar. The garden house was his home and workplace until he moved to the house on the Frauenplan in 1782. For a further fifty years, the „lower garden“ served as a „refuge“. It was opened as a museum in 1886. The garden house was completely renovated in 1995/96, the type of museum furnishings changed several times and the interior was restored to its original state.

The kitchen and „Erdsälchen“, Goethe's study and bedroom as well as two other rooms can be viewed. The garden on the slope corresponds in its basic features to Goethe's former estate. Goethe's garden house is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site „Classical Weimar“, which is a unique testimony to the cultural epoch of Weimar Classicism and reflects Weimar's outstanding role as an intellectual center in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.