Dome of Stoop

After the Napoleonic era, the reforestation of the Wild Lands began in the Netherlands; this also happened on the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. Many of these lands were purchased by wealthy private individuals, who wanted to exploit those lands for a profit – or build a beautiful country estate on them. This includes a number of heathlands east of Zeist, which became the property of the Amsterdam banker J.B. Stoop. He started with the planting of new forest and wanted to build his dream country estate in a high place. The well-known landscape architect J.D. Zocher Jr. was commissioned in 1840 to lay out the garden and to design a country house, tea dome and hunting lodge. The garden, the dome and the hunting lodge (at the back of the garden) were built, but the mansion never got off the ground. Our walk goes past the dome and the garden, the hunting lodge is not visible.

TeVoet Vereniging