Castle of Countess Jeanne de Mérode, Westerlo

The castle stands as a large neo‑Renaissance composition with several vertical elements that define its silhouette. The exterior includes four small turrets, one dominant tower, and a bell tower shaped like a crown. Roof trusses are made of steel, and the building was fitted from the outset with modern utilities and machines appropriate to an early twentieth-century country house.

Water was supplied from an on‑site artesian well drilled to more than 100 metres. Water rose by an electric pump into a large steel pressure tank that distributed supply throughout the house. The pump and pressure vessel are housed in a pump house situated in the park along the Hollandsedreef side of the domain.

Electrical power and motive power came from the power station of the old family castle on Polderstraat. Two electric lifts remain part of the building’s vertical services: a passenger lift set in a glazed shaft beside the service stairs, and a goods lift used to carry supplies and to raise laundry from service areas.

Sanitary and bathing arrangements were extensive for the period. Multiple bathrooms served the principal occupants, guests, and staff. Water closets were installed in nearly every corner turret on each floor. The original heating relied on coal‑fired cellar furnaces that circulated warm air through ducts and brass grilles; that system was removed in 1920 and replaced by a hot‑water radiator network.

Service and storage spaces occupy a half‑elevated basement level. There the kitchen and adjacent sitting and dining room for servants, fuel cellars, storage rooms, wine cellar, and several food storage cellars, including one fitted with an ice machine, were grouped for efficient household work. Meals were lifted to the dining area by a plate lift that delivered food to a servery beside the dining room. A mezzanine above the servery contained a silver room with a fireproof safe.

The main internal circulation emphasized separation between public and private use. A large vestibule on the ground floor gave onto a grand stair that provided access to the first floor and was reserved for the countess and high-ranking visitors. Ground-floor principal rooms included a salon used as a library, a reception room, and the maître d’hôtel’s living room. A private chapel opened from the vestibule and was served for daily mass by a priest from Tongerlo Abbey; the chapel connected directly to two large guest rooms intended for senior clerics and these rooms also opened onto the vestibule.

Sleeping arrangements followed a clear hierarchy through the floors. The first floor accommodated the countess, her companion Hoffmann, and distinguished guests with sleeping, living, and bathing rooms. The second floor provided guest rooms for ordinary visitors alongside staff sleeping and working rooms, while the attic contained additional maid’s quarters.

Outbuildings and grounds form a compact service landscape. A gatekeeper’s house stands to the right of the main entrance on the Tongerlodreef side; the gatekeeper also operated shutters and acted as a second chauffeur. On the Hollandsedreef side a gardener’s house adjoins a partly walled kitchen garden and several greenhouses, some fitted with hot‑water heating to grow grapes. A wash house attached to the gardener’s house contains two large rooms for washing and ironing and a large attic for drying linen. The park and arboretum include an orchard, lawns that were partly mown and partly grazed by a small flock of sheep, and a sheepfold that was rebuilt in brick after the First World War and later adapted into a cafeteria in the 1970s. Vehicles belonging to the household, including two Minerva automobiles, were kept in the garage at the old family castle on Polderstraat.

Except for the greenhouses, the buildings on the estate have been preserved, and the ensemble retains the main layout and service arrangements that defined its function as a single-person aristocratic residence and later institutional seat.