The signs ‘Vol, No Vacancies, Besetzt’ are again on the hotel doors in Zandvoort: after two years, the hotel season has started normally again during Easter. Hotel owner Martin Faber moves when he thinks back to those empty rooms. “I thought: I’ll just turn it into apartments.”
Martin Faber has been running the hotel on Kostverlorenstraat, the road leading to the sea, since the 1970s. His grandfather Tjeerd started it in 1932, after which his father Marin continued it in 1958 and his son Nick will run the hotel after him. Not that Martin is thinking of quitting, especially now that the lockdowns seem to be over.
But it is now up and running. His daughters Lotte and Fleur are helping out during the busy Easter weekend, while they have to go back to their own jobs next week. And his wife Patricia is busy cleaning the rooms. There is not enough staffas with so many catering businesses at the moment.
Martin barely has time during breakfast. Eggs and bacon must be fried for the mainly German guests. The often regular guests are happy that they can come here again.
“Gemutlichkeit, die geselligkeit, de familiär”, one guest describes the hotel. They sit between the display cases with the family collection of porcelain, trains, cars and more than 100 portrait paintings of Martin’s father. “It’s actually a museum,” says the hotel owner.
But it would have been close if this hotel-cum-museum would not have survived the ninety years. “I was painting the first wave (of corona cases, ed.), but I didn’t feel like anything about the second wave. And I think, I’ll make apartments out of it.” Martin Faber now has plans for the future, and that also makes him emotional. “I’m only human.”