Historical Gardens

Michael Jackson’s Neverland and Loosdrecht’s Eikenrode would never have been linked on this blog if it weren’t for the fact that they have been sharing similar fates during the last few months. Both estates were put up to auction by their respective banks in recent months, and both estates were able to avoid that public sale at the last minute. The difference is that where one is world news -the possible auction of Neverland even received coverage by Dutch local regional press, news on the fate of Eikenrode never gained attention outside of the realm of the regional press -and this blog, ofcourse.

The main house of Eikenrode after the restoration. Both photo’s by GVB Architecten, 2003.

Eikenrode was to be publically sold last week, but a few days before the auction the owners, the municipality and the banks reached an agreement on how to go forward. The province of Noord-Holland brought all parties together to reach this solution, according to their press release on the matter. It seems there are no new agreements made between parties, nor is the process of transferring the grounds from the municipality to the current owner of the house completed. The bank, who threatened to sell the estate because it took the other parties ages to complete this transfer, must have been assured by all parties they would not lose money on this deal. This means that Martien Plasmeijer can proceed with his plans to gradually restore the estate and develop new ways to make money at Eikenrode.

Eikenrode was established in 1845 for the Hacke family, who lived on the estate until 1974. The design of both the house and the gardens is attributed to architect Johan David Zocher jr, but as far as I know this attribution is based on oral history, not on documentation.¹ Much of the original layout of the garden is still visible today. In recent years Plasmeijer restored the main house and ice-cellar. As soon as the transfer is completed, work on restoring the coach-house annex orangerie can begin. Plasmeijer is planning appartments for elderly people who need to be cared for (zorgappartementen) in this building, which was destroyed by fire last December.
Earlier photo’s (from 2003) show that this building was in a deplorable state even before the fire. The cause of the fire has never been established (or has not been made public). A short video of the fire can be found in this earlier post.

Note:

1. Attribution by H.M. van der Wijck, De Nederlandse Buitenplaats. Aspecten van ontwikkeling, bescherming en herstel, 1982, p.311. This information is maintained on the TUiN database, with the addition that the attribution is based on oral history. Archiwijzer says the garden and orangerie are indeed by Zocher, but not the house. Though it resembles Zocher’s later design of the house of Molenbosch in Zeist, according to them the architect of the main house of Eikenrode is Jan Streefkerk. [back]

The fate of the Eikenrode estate in Loosdrecht has turned from bright to dim in a matter of only two months. Last April I could report that Eikenrode was one of seven estates to receive a restoration grant from the big Dutch VSBfonds. This grant was preceded by another grant five months earlier: in December 2006 RACM decided to fund the restoration of the coach house/orangerie with an amount of € 293,575.00.¹

Coach house at Eikenrode after the fire

On December 15th, 2007 (almost to the day one year after the RACM grant was awarded), while all necessary paperwork for the upgrade of the structure to several apartments was ready, said coach house/orangerie caught fire and was severely damaged. According to a local source the fire was probably started intentionally, because the empty building was cut off from any gas or electricity lines.²

Luckily for the owners of Eikenrode, RACM came with a quick assessment that, although many original features were lost, the remains of the building were still considered to be a monument, which meant the building activities could go ahead.

But the next blow came by the end of January 2008. Not in the form of flames this time, but in the form of nervous banks announcing the public sale of Eikenrode on March 4th, 2008. What happened? Since 1974 Eikenrode had been owned by the local counsil, in whose hands the estate deteriorated. Plasmeijer started his reconstructive work on the estate in the year 2000, with silent support from the local counsil -who still owned the grounds surrounding the house. Both parties decided in April 2007 to formaly transfer the complete estate to Plasmeijer, the new ‘lord of the manor’ with two restoration grants in his pocket to back his plans up. This transfer process took a while and has yet to be finalised, reason for the participating banks to withdraw their support and announce the public auction.³

The bank’s action has been condemned and deemed ‘premature’ by both the local counsil and Plasmeijer. According to them, all parties are working hard to complete the transfer before March 4th. To be continued, I’m sure.

Edit @ February 25th 2008: I found a short ‘movie’ of the fire on YouTube, with some comments from a local at the end. The comment is in Dutch, ofcourse.

1. In that same month, owner Martien Plasmeijer received the largely symbolic title of Ambachtsheer van Mijnden en de beide Loosdrechten from his predecessor. [back]
2. Stichting Historisch Goed Loosdrecht, entry of 16-12-2007. [back]
3. These are tough times for banks, who have most probably taken the recent fire into account as well. [back]