Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Laren

The history of Huis Verwolde goes back to the middle ages. The present house was built in 1776 on the foundations of a medieval castle by the lord of Verwolde, Frederik Willen van der Borch. Six generations of the Van der Borch family lived in the house until 1977. In that year the last lord of Verwolde - A.Ph.R.C. Baron van der Borch van Verwolde - decided to sell Huis Verwolde to “Geldersch Landschap & Kasteelen” (a Dutch heritage organisation). Phillip Willem Schonck was the architect of the house. It took nine successive months to built the two storey brick house in Dutch classical style; the decoration took some years. The house is surrounded by formal gardens and a landscape park. Durinng World War II Huis Verwolde was use as a clinic for patients with tuberculose, who had to move from the town of Scheveningen because of the construction of the Atlantikwall by the Germans. In doing this, the family prevented the Germans from taking over the house Huis Verwolde is open to the public, also with guided tours.

The Singer Laren sculpture garden is designed by Piet Oudolf, a well-known Dutch garden architect. The garden contains sculptures by contemporary Dutch artists, all of them on the theme of the relationship between culture and nature. The Singer Laren sculpture garden is accessible free of charge.

The Zuiderheide is one of the heathland areas in Het Gooi ; an area centred on the spur of the so called Utrechtse Heuvelrug (Utrecht Hill Ridge). The height differences in the area were created 120,000 years ago during the penultimate ice age. There are several ca. 4,000-year-old prehistoric burial mounds on the Zuiderheide , which protrude above the heathland like clearly recognisable green domes. The southernmost part of the heathland - near Theehuis 't Bluk - consists of shifting sand, in fact a Dutch 'desert'. The sand that lies here was once brought by the polar storms of the last ice age. After being pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the area last year, this year we visited especially for the blooming heather fields. And partly due to the wet spring, the Zuiderheide was also purple as purple can be !!

Knowing Laren as the place where rich and wealthy people live and as a village with imposing villas and mansions, I did not expect a windmill here. But surrounded by buildings and vegetation, I found this flourmill on a bicycle trip through the Gooi region. To this day, it is not absolutely clear when a windmill was first built in Laren. Compared to the surrounding places, Laren was granted the construction of its own mill relatively late, undoubtedly due to the fact that such a little village couldn´t provide enough work for a miller. A deed dated May 14th, 1704, shows that in Laren buckwheat was being husked a crudely ground as early as the beginning of the 18th century. It has to be assumed, however, that this was not done in a windmill but in a treadmill being operated with the help of horses or oxen. The first reference to De Korenmolen in Laren (Laren windmill) in today´s state can be found in a document dated 20th November, 1747, in which Jan Roel Calis is specifically described as a corn miller in the village of Laren. The present mill was built in 1773, and may have been a displaced polder mill. During the 20th century the mill had a couple of restorations. Nowadays both wind-powered and electric grinding still take place. In the adjacent shop - still run by the Calis family - flour is sold that has been milled in De Larense Molen .