When Etienne Gustave Frédéric, Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar (yes, say that three times fast), married Baroness Hélène de Rothschild—yes, those Rothschilds—he hadn’t yet inherited De Haar Castle. But it turned out, marrying her was the best thing that ever happened to the place.

Five years later, the Rothschild fortune finally reached the grounds of De Haar. And when it did, it didn’t just renovate the castle—it resurrected it. Baroness Hélène fell in love with the ruin, with its crumbling stones and ghost stories, and decided to turn it into a modern-day fairy tale. She hired none other than Pierre Cuypers—the architectural genius behind the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam Central Station—and gave him twenty years (yes, twenty) to bring her vision to life. Read more