New plan at Eikenrode: demolish the orangery

The 150 year old orangery at Eikenrode in Loosdrecht will be demolished, sources close to Eikenrode say. The orangery (which might have been designed by J.D. Zocher jr) played an important role in the plans to revitalise the estate: it was to be restored and house care apartments. But it…

Continue reading

Excavating a modern garden

Jardines de Pedro Luis Alonso, a garden I have only seen once -looking down from halfway up the hill towards the Gibralfaro Castle in Málaga (Spain)- prompted some of the general questions garden historians face when writing about a garden. Especially when the garden is not very familiar to them,…

Continue reading

Research budget for the Leyduin belvedere

Around a month ago a large ‘auction’ of landscape features in The Netherlands was announced, in an attempt to rake in more money to protect and maintain these vital landscapes. A website is available where people can bid for their favourite piece of landscape. People do not actually buy a…

Continue reading

A late 18th century Sanssouci-Texel connection?

Sometimes finding similarities between garden designs is just a matter of coincidence, or luck. Despite that, it always results in a feeling of accomplishment which is deserved nor appropiate. It also tends to lead to more questions than answers, which is nice, but not very helpful. This is such a…

Continue reading

Public auction of Eikenrode cancelled

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…

Continue reading