- Type
- Palace / château
- Built
- 13th century
- Location
- Utrecht, Netherlands
- Coordinates
- 52.0314°, 5.3386°
History
The original moated castle was built in the late 13th century for Adolf of Waldeck, provost of Utrecht Cathedral, and served the cathedral provosts as a residence for centuries. Destroyed in 1322, it was rebuilt some decades later, gained residential wings around a courtyard in the 16th and 17th centuries, and was thoroughly remodelled in 1796 and set in a landscape park. In 1919 the deposed German Emperor Wilhelm II bought the estate for half a million guilders, brought in furnishings from his palaces in Berlin and Potsdam and moved in in May 1920. He lived here until his death on 4 June 1941 and was buried in a mausoleum in the grounds. After the war the Dutch state seized the property as enemy assets, and in 1956 it opened as a museum.
What to see
The museum shows the rooms as they were in the emperor's day, with furniture, tapestries, paintings by German court artists, porcelain and silver, along with collections of snuffboxes and of uniforms that belonged to Frederick the Great. The restored servants' quarters in the attic can also be visited. The house is open from Tuesday to Sunday, with tickets sold at the gatehouse, and Wilhelm II's mausoleum stands in the surrounding park.
Wikipedia article Official website Wikidata Q559460
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