Prince Frederick’s style

Do you like to have continuity in the interior design of your home? Prince Frederick of the Netherlands did that earlier on a large scale. Bridges, official residences, retaining walls, farms, and his own country houses: many of the architectural elements on the nine estates in Wassenaar were given the same appearance. Besides being beautiful, this ensured that everybody instantly knew that they found themselves on the terrain of Prince Frederick.

De Paauw was the first country residence in Wassenaar that Prince Frederick purchased. He bought it in the spring of 1838 and he was really looking forward to getting to know his new house and park in the countryside. In August, he celebrated the birthday of his father King William I there. That might not sound so amazing, but in fact, it was because the household effects of the previous owner were still there! This furniture was only put up for sale in December of that year; therefore the prince lived with somebody else’s stuff around him for a few months. 

Expansionism

After De Paauw, Prince Frederick subsequently purchased another eight country estates until 1854, namely: Raaphorst, Ter Horst, Eikenhorst, Backershagen and Groot Haesebroek, including Drie Papegaaien, Wildrust and Het Zwarte Hek. With this, his property extended from the Veurseweg in Voorschoten to the dunes and amounted to no less than 886 hectares. The prince wanted to increase the diversity in buildings and improve the natural beauty and merge his estates into a single entity. Therefore many buildings from different periods were modernised into a single style.

Court architect Wentzel

For the built elements on the estate, Prince Frederick brought the German architect Hermann Wentzel to the Netherlands in 1851. The prince knew him from the Prussian court in Berlin, the place where he had grown up. Wentzel was his court architect for twenty years. He started with the expansion and embellishment of De Paauw into a Prussian Palace. The last building he worked on was the renovation of Ter Horst. He created unity by adapting existing elements and building all new bridges and official residences in the same style. 

The chalet style

Wentzel applied the chalet style, a romantic building style that was very popular in the 19th century. In that period, people were particularly enchanted by the “pristine” chalets in the mountain areas of Switzerland, for example. The style is characterised by protruding roofs and richly decorated carvings on rooflines and gables. The decorations had a pattern of openings resembling lace. This is therefore referred to as openwork or lacework. Wentzel often combined the chalet style with other architectural styles, resulting in an eclectic entity.

The retaining wall

When Prince Frederick purchased the Backershagen country estate, there was already a beautiful teahouse on a high, artificially constructed hill. It lay on the route the coach passed when the prince rode from Eikenhorst via Backershagen to De Paauw. But the hill was at risk of subsiding. He therefore commissioned the construction of a retaining wall by Hermann Wentzel. The wall was decoratively finished with a brick parapet with openwork.
Take the time to walk to the retaining wall so that you can admire this beautiful large-scale work up-close. And you will have a view of another unusual object: the hermitage on a peninsula that represents the cave of a hermit. Such follies were part of a landscape park design where the walker was continually surprised by intriguing features. Today the teahouse is a private residence.

The shooting house

Prince Frederick was crazy about hunting and had a beautiful shooting house on the De Horsten. It is a picturesque, octagonal building and a statue of a pheasant used to proudly perch on its thatched roof. A glass gallery was attached to the building. At a distance of 100 metres, there was a rail that a dummy hare or pheasant glided across. From the shooting house, Prince Frederick and his guests could shoot the moving target for practice and pleasure. Today the shooting house is a tea pavilion: you can enjoy a drink while admiring the rich history. On the wall, you can still admire hunting trophies and antlers. 

Ter Horst

As stated previously, Prince Frederick was an enthusiastic hunter and he therefore had the dilapidated Huis ter Horst restored into a small hunting lodge in the Gothic style. Architect P.F.W. Mouton received the commission for this. After an exhausting hunting party, the prince and his companions would come here to recover from their exertions and enjoy a hearty meal. The facade has a stepped gable slightly off centre and decorations above the doors and windows. Unfortunately, the prince could not enjoy the lodge very long; the house was completed in 1876 and Prince Frederick died in 1881. 
Throughout the hunting area were two-metre-high columns inscribed with the text: ‘Hunting grounds of HRH Prince Frederick’. It could not be clearer!

Discover it for yourself!

The Parks Route has many buildings which are real gems. The examples described above are just the tip of the veil. Come and explore the parks and admire the bridges, official lodgings, boundary markers, country residences and much more!