When Etienne Gustave Frédéric, Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar (1860–1934), married Baroness Hélène de Rothschild, of the Rothschild family, he had not yet inherited the De Haar Castle. This marriage was a blessing for the castle, although it will still take five years before the castle benefits from the Rothschild family’s fortune. The Baroness fell in love with the castle and decided to restore it into a modern version. She contracted the famous architect Pierre Cuypers (who was the architect of other two famous buildings: Amsterdam Central Station and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam). He had worked on this project for 20 years (from 1892 to 1912). The castle has 200 rooms and 30 bathrooms, of which only a small number have been opened for the public. At that time, the castle had placed very modern gadgets, such as electrical lighting with its own generator, and central heating by way of steam.
When in The Netherlands you must visit De Haar Castle, the largest castle of the Netherlands, located just outside Utrecht and a half an hour drive from Amsterdam. You can easily spend a whole afternoon visiting the beautiful rooms, walking along in the gardens, escaping the maze or even having a pick-nick on the green-green lawn.
For the decoration of the park, the village Haarzuilens, except for the town church, was demolished. The inhabitants were moved to a place a kilometer away, where a new Haarzuilens arose and where they lived as tenants of the lord of the castle.
The oldest historical record of a building at the location of the current castle dates to 1391. In that year, the family De Haar received the castle and the surrounding lands as a fiefdom from Hendrik van Woerden. The castle remained in the ownership of the De Haar family until 1440 when the last male heir died. The castle then passed to the Van Zuylen family.
In 2000, the family Van Zuylen van Nyevelt passed ownership of the castle and the gardens to the foundation Kasteel de Haar. However, the family retained the right to spend one month per year in the castle. After the death in 2011 of the last male heir, Thierry van Zuylen, his daughters also sold the castle’s art collection and furnishings to the new owners.
It has been a century-long tradition for the Van Zuylen family to reside in the castle for one month a year in September. Back in the days, they have had lavish parties, entertaining prominent guests such as Coco Chanel, Maria Callas, Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Yves Saint Laurent, Joan Collins and Brigitte Bardot.
I visited the castle on a lovely sunny day, walking around the extensive estate and getting excited about each room and each story of the people who owned it over the years. The most interesting character I found to be the Baroness Hélène van Zuylen van Nijevelt van de Haar, a French socialite, author and a sporting figure in Parisian life. She was one of a trio of French female motoring pioneers of the Belle Epoque. She entered the 1898 Paris–Amsterdam–Paris Trail using the pseudonym Snail, thus becoming the first woman to compete in an international motor race. She was nicknamed La Brioche. Although she was married to Baron Etienne van Zuylen, Hélène had a lesbian partner, Renée Vivien, with who she collaborated on stories and poems. Her main creative writing period was from 1902 through 1907, the period of the affair with Renée Vivien.
Website: http://www.kasteeldehaar.nl/english/
Address: Kasteellaan 1. 3455 RR Haarzuilens
Opening Hours: Castle – daily from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Park – daily from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.