Het Relaer

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Situated on the estate Het Relaer, a COUNTRY HOUSE of the same name, built 1911-1913 by architect H. Meyerink from Zwolle.

Completely cellared three-storey blocky building, constructed in neo-Renaissance style from dark-coloured stone on a base of Oberkirchner sandstone; lintels, mouldings, bands, columns and steps are executed in the same natural stone; the roof surfaces of the hipped roofs visible from the outside are covered with dark-purple slates.

The facades directly visible (front and right side facades) are executed with considerable architectural care. The front facade is symmetrically arranged with a central entrance section, which is emphasised by a natural stone staircase leading to a landing, which is overhung by a balcony resting on Ionic columns with balustrade and corner vases; pilasters with floral garlands support the profiled cornice carried by consoles, upon which, likewise supported by such pilasters, a roof-house crowned by a richly worked semi-circular pediment rests.

On either side symmetrical to the entrance section respectively per storey: a fifteen-pane sash window and a bay window with glazing bars and curved pediment; three sash windows, respectively fifteen- and twenty-pane, and two roof dormers with curved pediment. Above the windows of the first floor as well as on either side of the entrance relieving arches, beneath which recessed panels. The windows of ground floor and first floor equipped with wooden shutters.

The right side facade is likewise symmetrically arranged, while here too the middle section, which lies equally recessed wedged between two rectangular pavilion-like building blocks, is especially emphasised by a generous natural stone staircase, which provides access to a terrace covered by a balcony with balustrade; the whole here is emphasised at first floor level by a triangular pediment; windows, glazing bars, dormers and shutters as on the front.

Rear and side facades are less rigidly and carefully arranged and executed; various types of door and window openings.

On the roof corner chimneys and centrally placed open turret.

Interiorly, the house contains, as far as ground floor and staircase are concerned, still the original interior components; it is striking that the execution and decoration of the various spaces is in keeping with their function. The rooms on the first floor are simpler, but very carefully finished.

The large hall is executed in heavy Dutch neo-Renaissance: oak beams; richly carved beam keys; wainscoting in dark stained oak, equipped with flat pilasters and a frieze with panels between carved masks; panelled oak doors.

Generous central main staircase with carved balusters and newel posts crowned by Ionic capitals (oak).

Opposite a large (oak) fireplace: breast with frieze of acanthus leaf and putti; lions as consoles; the whole is carried by a male and a female figure in full-length (sandstone), which presumably can be regarded as seventeenth-century work and may possibly originate from the seventeenth-century predecessor of the present house.

The consoles carrying the breast are early twentieth-century and decorated with scrollwork, palmette and Ionic capital.

The fireplace is tiled with polychrome tiles with figurative representations, which possibly are also seventeenth-century.

The library is equipped with a ceiling of beams with carved key pieces and oak open bookcases. Fireplace with oak breast, carried by two Ionic small columns (sandstone) on basementles. Basementles and a shaft are presumably seventeenth-century and possibly also originating from the seventeenth-century predecessor of 't Relaer. Tiling of manganese-coloured tiles with Biblical representations, likewise possibly seventeenth-century.

The study is executed with dark stained wainscoting, a heavy fireplace of rosy-brown veined marble and a carefully worked stucco ceiling. Salon and sitting room are executed in a lighter and airier style and equipped with a stucco ceiling with delicate motifs and marble fireplaces with fantasy decorations. The dining room is executed again in a late Dutch neo-Renaissance manner and possesses a ceiling of beams and carved key pieces; the usual oak wainscoting; a large fireplace with breast on free-standing marble columns with Ionic capital and white tiling with two, late eighteenth- early nineteenth-century (?) polychrome tile tableaux.

Fine country house of general significance because of its archaeological and art historical value.