Visiting Hotel “Scholteshof”

The famed hotel-restaurant “Scholteshof“, located in Kermt (near Hasselt), Belgium, has been abandoned for a few years. The domain is very large and used to contain a tennis court, multiple ponds and multiple surrounding gardens, two restaurants and the main hotel itself. Not much of these things are left nowadays, except the gardens, who are becoming one big wood. It is funny to research the place on for example google, and find pictures and videos from the past. It looked amazing back then. Many famous people used to visit and stay here, and some even came by helicopter. Take for example this link. It contains nice a looking video of how the hotel used to be, and some information about the food:

Roger Souvereyns, a collector and a man of sense converts an old farm dating back to 1742, an ancient dwelling of the Bailiff of Steevoort, into a peace haven where gastronomy and lifestyle inter-relate quite harmoniously. In the eleven-hectare estate with kitchen gardens, vineyards and herbariums, all of which provide directly the cooking with the first-quality products, the Scholteshof surrounds you, at any time, of superb art objects, which intermingle with the valuable precious antique furniture, the goal of which is to offer a varied and cosy setting. Let’s discover his cooking all quality-based on specific products so as to find out the authentic tastes, while preserving the natural flavours and aromas, all this thanks to simple preparations, such as these fillets sautés, truffles and goose-liver in carpaccio, or these roe-buck undercuts, pear in red wine and beetroots.

Isn’t that something. Even the New York Times states something like “the Gentleman’s Farm“. As you might have guessed by now, the place has been abandoned and most of it’s glory has been completely lost. Here’s another quick summary of Expedia:

Hotel in Stevoort, Kermstraat 130. Virtuoso chef Roger Souvereyns is also a passionate antique collector and gardener. He has lovingly restored this magnificent 18th - century farmhouse and tends a 28 - acre garden, where he grows the herbs and vegetables which flavor his gourmet cuisine. Savor le croquant de legumes en mille - feuille, la creme de petits pois glaces, carpaccio de coquilles et caviar, and sublime gateau chocolat …

I can’t find more detailed pictures of how the hotel used to be, have a look at Yahoo travel. At any rate, this is how it looks nowadays:

Doesn’t look that bad, doesn’t it? Yet you haven’t seen the inside! The upper left photo is an overview shot of the whole domain, crowed with plants. Down left is the back entrance - of course the main gate has been sealed, due to “construction work”, yeah right. I heard the domain has been sold to another owner and they plan to rebuild the thing, but that’s a rather old tale, and in the meantime the situation is worsening… There used to be a beautiful botanic garden, impeccably maintained. I didn’t see anything like that, except a lot of wild growing grapes, apples and some pears here and there. And of course the required amount of nettles.

Anyway, continuing our journey (never do these crazy things alone, I did fall - not completely - through the floor on the third floor somewhere), we entered something like a serre, built with an arc-like ceilling, with strange steel bar shapes. It must have been really impressive, as this architecture is a mix of classic early 1900 farm styles and modern shapes. In case anyone is interested, the architectural plans of a part of the building was pinned to the wall inside, so here goes:

An interesting news article: (Dutch, too lazy to translate, sorry!) Heropening Scholteshof laat op zich wachten - “Gewezen toprestaurant dreigt ruïne te worden”

Hasselt - Bijna twee jaar nadat de renovatiewerken aan het Scholteshof werden stilgelegd, is de toekomst van het domein nog onzeker. De toekomstige uitbater maakt zich sterk dat de werken in de loop van 2007 opnieuw kunnen starten. De stad denkt daar anders over.
Waar in een niet zo grijs verleden peperdure wagens geparkeerd stonden, dames in avondkledij en heren met een exquise culinaire smaak flaneerden, heerst nu het verval. Zelfs de kruidentuin, ooit het uithangbord van Scholteshof, is met onkruid overwoekerd. Met de gewezen topzaak gaat het, zes jaar nadat meesterkok Roger Souvereyns het restaurant verkocht, niet al te best. Rond Peter Willems, de eigenaar van een Nederlandse horecaholding die twee jaar geleden 1,75 miljoen euro op tafel legde voor het domein, is het erg stil geworden.

The article is timestamped: december 2006. It states that renovation works has been shut down almost two years ago and that the domain is showing it’s age. Well it could be worse, of course. I have seen houses in a worser state than this hotel, but still. Once you go inside, you don’t encounter as much rubbish as you’d think, except the naked wires, the raw plumbing, some partially broken windows, and a lot of crowed nature. Little frogs are jumping around in the courtyard. Some pictures, taken inside:

Sadly, the pathway leading to the cellar has been flooded by the rain, and these strange ditches (second photo, upper right). They lead to the couryard, I guess it used to be a path or just something to logically split the courtyard into different vegetations. Who knows. All I know is the place did not loose it’s charm, it simply changed it’s form. Most hallways still have some spots mounted on the ceilling, but of course the power has been cut off a long time ago. I also found different sizes and formats of central heating, probably fueled by gas, also inside the serre. Even without those turned on, it was hot inside! (On a saturday morning, the temprature outside was approx. 23°C and rising, as the sun showed up) Inside the serre, grape branches crawled inside and a lot of wild vegetation was visible. Judging from the leftovers, it’s easy to see why this hotel once used to be highly desirable.

Another news article at Bouw en Wonen, states the property has not been sold successfully (2003) because the bidding price was too low. €1.250.000, (about one point nine million US dollars) and the brokers are disappointed. Wow. Then again, 28 acre is huge, even for a converted “farm”. A quote for the interested:

Dat ene hogere bod was de enige keer dat er uit de zaal geluid kwam van de vier aanwezige ‘echte’ kandidaten. Dat was niet naar de zin van onder meer de rechter die de verkoop meteen afblies. Geen derde zitdag dus.

Vanaf vandaag zoeken curatoren Odeurs en Libens opnieuw contact met de meer dan 40 kandidaten die eerder informeerden naar de prijs van het Scholteshof. Op die manier hopen ze voor de winter een onderhandse verkoop klaar te hebben.De eindsom moet dan liggen tussen het huidige bod, 1.250.000 euro, en 2.500.000 euro, de eerdere vraagprijs toen het Scholteshof via immo-makelaars te koop werd aangeboden.

“Ontgoochelend,”zo omschreef één van de twee curatoren,meester Odeurs, de gebeurtenissen tijdens de tweede verkoopdag van het Domein Scholteshof.“Hier zitten vier echte kandidaat-kopers waarvan er maar één biedt en dan niet eens voldoende hoog voor dit unieke pand. Hebben de mensen nu schroom om hier wat te zeggen, ik weet het niet.Feit is dat we alleszins geen derde verkoopdag meer zullen organiseren. Dat heeft geen zin.”

Now that we’re talking numbers anyway, some pictures I took in the “administrator’s office” - or something that looks like it. A lof of folders and paperwork containing a full bookyear and official tax forms, filled in customers’ contact information, … Even the noteworthy “Tips & Advies voor Horeca” booklet, still lying around on the floor. The owners should have read it instead of wasting time maintaining the garden, hehe… Most desks have been stripped - roughly: all contents has been randomly thrown on the floor. If you are still looking for a spotlight, go ahead…

The safe has been left open, and of course empty. I didn’t take a look at every little shelf inside, but figured it would be very stupid to leave something interesting for scavengers like us. Not exactly though, we were only there to photograph, out of pure curiosity! Although we had to literally kick in a few doors in order to reach the upper chambers. Imagine the exciting action moment!

Another interesting link (Manager magazines), which states that the wine cellar in the “Scholteshof” had to be very impressive:

En de ster van het Scholteshof?
En het Scholteshof? Is het voormalige toprestaurant in Stevoort zijn ster onherroepelijk kwijt na het faillissement in augustus? “Als een bedrijf failliet gaat, verdwijnt het uit de
gids,” bevestigt Paul Van Craenenbroeck, hoofdredacteur Benelux voor de Rode Gids.
“Als een restaurant met één of meer sterren de boeken neerlegt vlak na de verschijning van onze gids in februari, vervolgens meteen wordt overgenomen en een jaar lang door ons wordt getest en goed bevonden, dan kan het zijn ster of sterren behouden. Dat zou ook kunnen als de zaak wordt overgenomen door een restaurant dat al één of meer sterren heeft, op voorwaarde dat wij in de overgenomen zaak de kwaliteit hebben getest. Kortom, een ster is altijd afhankelijk van de controles door onze inspecteurs.”

Wijnkelder
Het Antwerpse veilinghuis Amberes verkoopt overigens op 2 december de wijn-kelder van het Scholteshof. Er worden meer dan 13.500 flessen geveild, waaronder topwijnen als Mouton Rothschild en Romanée Saint-Vivant. Op 3 december komen ook het meubilair en de kunstvoorwerpen van het failliete restaurant-hotel uit Stevoort onder de hamer.

So the wine cellar contents has been sold (including most of the furniture, fist part of the quote), up to 13.500 bottles… The cellar has been flooded, but wasn’t worth getting wet for after all. Not that I did try antyhing stupid. Apart from climbing on top of the roof using the emergency ladders. Something silly like that certainly is more exciting than it sounds. I found a couple of deprecated machines, air vents and such. And of course also heavily flooded areas, like the photo on the top right.

We did find some pieces of furniture on the upper floors: a wooden bench (more like a mini utility stand), standing next to the remains of the alarm systems. Fire alarms, and burglar alarms wires are still connected on the roof. There are a couple of mirrors still intact in some what-looked-like-luxuous chambers. It’s surprising to see almost all windows unscratched, except the photo on the lower left. Looking out of the windows, you get treated with a nice overview of the (too) green area.

Anyway, if you are interested in more pictures, take a look at my Flickr Urbex set.