Jaap (49) and Lotte (45) van Dongen are going to do something that many people should not think about. Later this year they will exchange their comfortable house in Boxtel for a dilapidated, monumental long-facade farmhouse from 1853 in Liempde: De Kasternse Hoeve. Together with their four children, they embark on a multi-year renovation adventure. “We really bought our dream place,” says Jaap.
The couple was not immediately sold during the viewing. “We actually bought it for the location and coincidentally there is also a farm on it,” says Jaap, laughing.
The Kasternse Hoeve started as a traditional farm and was transformed into a fruit growing company in 1939 by a family of fruit growers. Jaap and Lotte bought the house from that family.
Only a third of the farm is currently habitable, the rest consists of stables and empty spaces. When they first walked through it, it was immediately clear that it would be a big job. “We saw that the house was rotten and old and we knew that we couldn’t leave anything intact. Then we thought: do we actually want to start doing this?”
Yet during a long walk through the garden the feeling of doubt turned into conviction. “Halfway through, near an old field barn, we knew for sure: we have to do this.”
For Jaap and Lotte it is not just a renovation, but a project in which the whole family is involved. With four children between the ages of fourteen and twenty, they will soon be building their new home together. “We are all building this house together,” says Lotte.
Previously, the six of them traveled in a camper for seven months, an experience that taught them what it is like to really live together. “During the renovation we will temporarily live in wooden houses. But the children themselves said: that is at least bigger than a camper,” Jaap laughs.
The plan is ambitious: part of the farm will become their private room, the middle of the house will become the central living space and the children will have a separate wing with their own bedrooms and a bathroom. This way everyone has their own place, but it still remains a family home.
“We think we can turn this into something very beautiful.”
Although the farm is old and rotten, Jaap and Lotte want to preserve its original charm. “We think we can turn it into something very beautiful, with modern accents, but in its original condition,” says Jaap. Facades, windows and trusses remain intact, with plenty of glass at the rear to create light and space.
For the family, the new life is mainly about being outside. Campfires, cooking on an open fire, climbing trees and lighting a fire. “Not only we but also the children can’t wait,” says Lotte. At the same time, the social life of the children in Boxtel remains easily accessible by bicycle.
For the van Dongen family, De Kasternse Hoeve is a place where peace and space come together, and where the whole family can make new memories together, in the middle of the Brabant landscape.
It’s not going to be easy. “If you see everything like this now, it can be quite oppressive, but that is why we try to make a success of every small result,” says Jaap. “It’s not about the end point. The journey there is actually just as beautiful,” Lotte adds.