House De Paauw

The town hall of Wassenaar is housed in a beautiful classicist building. It has never been a castle, but it started its history as a country house. In 1556, Mr. Cornelis Arentsz. van der Dussen build a house on a site of about nine hectares that he called Te Pau.

Estate

In the course of his life he bought some land; Van der Dussen thus built an extension of his house and grounds. Perhaps we can call it an estate. He had a daughter Catharina, who was married to Pieter van der Goes. After the death of her father in 1581, she inherited the estate, which at that time had already grown to more than fifty hectares. After Catherine came several other owners.

In 1747 Adamus van Halfwassenaar bought the estate. He was Lord of Stad on the Haringvliet. His descendants sold the estate in 1770 to Adriaan Pieter Twent, who owned more goods in this region. Twent was a man of distinction. Under King Louis Napoleon he had risen to director of Waterstaat. Twent had important waterworks built in this region, which were intended to prevent the area from flooding every winter. He was also the one who ensured that the rijksstraatweg from Wassenaar to The Hague was built.

Modern country house

Adriaan Pieter Twent had the old house demolished and a modern country house built in its place. Twent died around 1838 and his heirs sold the estate, together with the estates De Raephorst and Ter Horst, to Prince Frederik of the Netherlands. Prince Frederik (1797-1881) was the second son of King William I. He had received a military education after his youth. He played a role in the siege of Brussels, during the campaigns in Belgium, but that was not a success. Since that time he was no longer directly involved in military actions and the prince could deal with other matters.

Prince Frederick

Prince Frederik had the house renovated after purchase, which included the ballroom, the current council chamber. The prince named the estate De Paauw and moved into it with his family.
After the death of Prince Frederick, the estate passed to his daughter, who was married to the Prince of Wied. Finally, in 1925, through an operating company, the municipality of Wassenaar became the owner of De Paauw and part of the land. The municipality started using De Paauw as a town hall and it still is today. The other estates, which were part of the Horsten, were bought by the then Queen Wilhelmina.

Administrative Centre

In the sixties of the last century, De Paauw was expanded with a committee room and archive rooms. In 1983 a municipal office was completed elsewhere, in which many departments of the town hall found a place. De Paauw has since been used as a town hall to a limited extent. De Paauw now functions as an administrative center, so that not only city council meetings can be held here, but also weddings can be held in a stylish way and receptions can be held.
In addition to being an administrative centre, De Paauw is also used for exhibitions in the field of visual arts. Moreover, the cellars of De Paauw house a very nice fire brigade museum, in which the ups and downs of the history of the fire brigade in the municipality of Wassenaar are recorded with the help of many attributes, utensils and documents.

Park and gardens

After the purchase of the Paauw by Prince Frederik, he commissioned the well-known landscape architect Eduard Petzold to harmoniously furnish the park and gardens of both De Paauw and De Horsten on the other side of the rijksstraatweg into a large whole. The planting has been arranged in such a way that a view bag has been created for De Paauw, which merges into the current De Horsten estate, to which De Paauw also belonged at the time. As a result, De Paauw can still be clearly seen from the Rijksstraatweg.

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