Slot Zeist

A country house in the Province of Utrecht

Utrecht is the smallest of Dutch provinces, being little more than a remnant of the once-powerful Prince-Bishopric of Utrecht. The city of Utrecht is the province’s capital and namesake, not to mention the primatial see of all the Netherlands. Just outside the provincial capital is the town of Zeist with its splendid little ‘palace’, Slot Zeist. The house was built from 1677 to 1686 on the ruins of Kasteel Zeist, the castle of the von Zeist family which died out in the fourteenth century (or survived through the Borre van Amerongen family, depending on how you look at it).

Count Willem Adriaan van Nassau, an illegitimate son of Prince Maurits of Nassau, bought the castle ruins and land and constructed the handsome huis on the site.

The baroque interiors were among the earliest local examples of the style, which came late to the Netherlands and never flourished. A number of murals by the famous Huguenot Daniel Morot survive. A restoration in the 1960s, after the house came into the possession of the local authority, was somewhat overzealous.

Cornelis Schellinger bought Slot Zeist in 1745 and invited his fellow Moravian Christians to live on the estate. The Moravians built two lovely quadrangles of houses (seen in the topmost photograph and below) flanking the allee of trees leading to the main house, and the denomination’s Dutch headquarters remains there to this day. There are a number of other houses of note in the area, many dating from the nineteenth century when wealthy Utrechters established their country retreats in and around Zeist.