Historical Gardens

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]

The ink of my previous post wasn’t even used (let alone had time to dry) when more news about restoration projects came to light. The Dutch funding institution VSBfonds reports it will invest € 3,8m in the restoration of 7 estates in The Netherlands. The estates are:

Reconstruction work in progress at Twickel, October 2007

• Kasteel Horn, Horn
• Landgoed Neercanne, Maastricht
• Landgoed Twickel, Delden
• Landgoed Eikenrode, Loosdrecht
• Kasteel Geldrop, Geldrop
• Kasteel Cannenburch, Vaassen
• Landgoed Zuylestein, Leersum

According to the VSB website, 9 restoration plans have been submitted by estates which were previously selected for the 2006 pilot. This selection was made in cooperation with RACM and PHB. It is the first time this grant has been awarded, if the pilot succeeds a new tender for the year 2007 will be announced.

Grants will only be awarded to restoration plans that comprise the full restoration of the estate. No money will be granted to partial restoration plans.

Mr. Kees de Ruiter, president of the new Dutch organisation responsible for the protection of the cultural heritage, RACM, held a plea to protect 10% of the Dutch cultural landscape as historical landscapes.

In an interview he claimed that regional differences are disappearing in an increasing pace, pointing at the same terracotta pots used everywhere and similarities between industrial estates throughout the country. At the moment no cultural landscapes have been protected formally.

And although I like the idea in general, I am slightly disturbed by the fact that the interview apparently did not state any requirements for this 10% -nor did it state which parameters mr. De Ruiter wants to use to select the greater group of so-called cultural landscapes. It did, however, state that we should be well considered about what we do with the other 90% percent of the cultural landscape, meaning the to-be-unprotected part of what can at best be descibed as an ill defined group of landscapes (within the even greater group of Dutch landscapes -which are all not natural, and as a consequence, he means the whole of The Netherlands?), which are changing in such a rapid pace, they must defy definition.

Sometimes no news is the best news.

Update (Feb 4, 2007): Unesco created this website recently, on which their criteria to ascertain whether a certain landscape qualifies as a ‘cultural landscape’ can be found, as well as an overview of the landcapes listed thusfar. Interesting stuff. Does not exactly help me to clarify what Mr. De Ruiter really wants, though.