Blumenthal

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

MAIN BUILDING (Huis Blumenthal). An elongated basement-chambered main building on a rectangular ground plan with at the corners on the rear side a tower-like pentagonal extension carried through to the roof and centrally on the rear at ground-floor level a substantial projecting pentagonal extension. The house, covered by a hipped roof with slate covering (Maas style), was built in the last decade of the eighteenth century on the instructions of Aachen cloth manufacturer Johann Arnold Clermont (1728-1795) in classical style. Five years after the preserved ground plan of the upper storey was made, the presumably Liège-born architect Joseph Moretti (1752-1793) started the construction of the house, which was completed in 1795, a few months after Clermont's death.

After 1846, when Carl von Clermont sold the estate to Wilhelm von Lommesen, Stadrat of Aachen, a convent with boarding school was established at Blumenthal on the initiative of the latter, belonging to the Dames du Sacre Coeur. Then the house was provided with large side wings and the pentagonal tower-like extension at the corners on the rear side was built as well as the outermost slightly recessed bay on either side of the front facade. Furthermore, the house, as appears from cadastral records, was given an extra storey before 1855 and the mansard roof was replaced by a hipped roof (the hipped roof was restored in 1991). On two drawings from the first half of the nineteenth century the house appears, viewed from the front, with a mansard roof, a tower placed centrally on the ridge and under the roof a single storey instead of two. The present cornice at the front and rear facades, which is installed between the first and second storeys and which is provided at the underside with a moulded edge, is the beginning of the cornice of the house before 1855.

In 1990 the side wings built after 1848 and a chapel built in 1865 were demolished in connection with the new use of Huis Blumenthal as a hotel.

The house is built in red brick with the application of Namur stone for the central projecting sections, the plinths, window and entrance surrounds and other decorative parts: blocked segmental arch surrounds with composite keystones and surrounds with moulded round arches in the central projecting sections of the front and rear facades. The facades are partly whitewashed and at the projecting sections crowned by a pediment are partially rendered.

On the gable walls of the main block, during restoration in 1990, remains came to light of painted windows with glazing bars (white glazing bars on a black background). These trompe l'oeil windows probably date from the construction period of the eighteenth-century house.

Front (NE) facade: centrally the entrance section located in the central projecting section which is three window bays wide, which is preceded by a flight of steps in Namur stone with double curving forward-swinging stairways of 8 steps on either side. The facade of the middle section of the flight of steps is terminated by a moulded list, which transitions into the socle mouldings of the stairway ending in a volute. The middle section projects slightly with respect to the beginning of the retaining walls of the stairs, which is bridged by quarter-round block pilasters on either side of the middle section. In the curved retaining walls of the stairs a trapezium-shaped window with cramp irons. Centrally in the middle section a segmental arch-shaped double door with 8-pane glazing (per door), which provides access to the basement. In the straight retaining walls on the sides of the stairs a segmental arch window with cramp irons. The entrance consists of a double panel door in Louis XVI style with single rosettes at the corners of the panels and between the panels and with ornamental consoles on the lower and upper panels.