Here again we have a manor which is connected to the Kress family. This manor was passed down to a different line of Kresses than those Cresses in America who are descended from Johann Nicholaus Heinrich Kress. However, one argument that Friedrich I Kress of Kraftshof was the actual father of Heinrich I Kress of Neunhof rather than the supposed Heroldus Kress has been made as that is how the engraved family tree of 1641 appears according to Kress Family History under the biography for Heroldus Krzze. If Friedrich I Kress was the father of Heinrich I Kress, he would be our only known ancestor connected to this manor at Kraftshof.

There are three different manor seats to be distinguished at Kraftshof.

2. Kraftshof Castle is also occasionally called Kresentstein.

According to several illustrations, which have been preserved, this castle looked like those which other patricians had erected in the neighborhood of Nuremberg. On a massive stone foundation, likewise surrounded by water, there was a timber-framed building with two stories and two extensions on it.

With regard to the older history of these two dwelling-places, the chronicles of the family archives at Kraftshof give two different versions:

A. Johann Wilhelm I Kress, who died in 1658, recorded that until 1456 only the so-called Kressenstein (old castle) existed. It was originally a fief of the Burgrave of Nuremberg, later the family von Berg. Later on this family gave the Kressenstein into the charge of the Holy Empire and this was the reason for its being an Imperial fief.

Johann Wilhelm recorded the following owners:

• Friedrick I Kress and his heirs; 1291-1343

• the Burgraves of Nuremberg; the Derrer; Berthold (Prechtel) Kress - 1357;

• Konrad Ehinger - 1376; Hermann Ebner - 1400;

• Hermann Volland and his heirs - 1403;

• Conrad Kress since 1404.

Beginning with this Conrad Kress, who died in 1430, the Kressenstein has been uninterruptedly in possession of the Kress family.

Kraftshof was documentarily mentioned for the first time in 1277. Friedrich and Herdegen the Holzschuher confirmed that Burgrave Friedrich of Nuremberg made them retainers in his castle at Kraftshof and gave them half of the village and the tithe there as a castle-fee.

Since Kressenstein could no longer be considered as a dwelling-place after the troubles of the war from 1449-1450, Hieronymous Kress, who died in 1477, is said to have had "another manor seat erected at the fish-pond and used it for his domicile, in order to have more comfort and that this house was his free property" that is, it was not a fief.

This other manor seat or castle is the one already described under 2, which was destroyed by the war bands of Forchheim in 1634 and was not rebuilt.

B. According to another opinion, recorded in subsequent documents, particularly by Carl Sigmund Kress about 1745, the Kressenstein was an Imperial fief from the very beginning and in continuous possession of the family. Besides the Kressenstein there had been a second manor seat also from the beginning, which was originally a fief of the family von Berg and which had different owners, according to the records of Johann Wilhelm Kress, with regard to the Kressenstein. It too was destroyed in 1449 and only rebuilt by Hieronymus Kress in 1456.

Which of these two versions is correct, could only be ascertained by detailed research at the sources. The opinion as recorded by Johann Wilhelm would seem to be more probable.