History and reconstruction
The medieval house De Haar was probably founded as early as the 13th century on a higher embankment along a tributary of the Rhine. De Haar is first mentioned in writings in 1391. Originally Kasteel de Haar was owned by a member of the Van der Haar family, who as a servant of the Prince-Bishop of Utrecht possessed enough prestige to build a fortified house for himself and his family. What exactly this house looked like is not known.
In the 15th century, the castle passed into the lineage of the Van Zuylen family through the marriage of Josina van de Haar to Dirk van Zuylen. Probably the castle received its characteristic pentagonal shape after the castle was destroyed during the disputes between the bishop and the city of Utrecht in 1482 and then rebuilt.
At the end of the 19th century, Baron Etienne van Zuylen van Nijevelt inherited the now badly dilapidated domain De Haar, which had been destroyed by various storms and wars in the centuries before. When the baron met and later married Hélène de Rothschild in Paris, he decided to rebuild the family castle as a tribute to his glorious family.
For this, the baron decided to collaborate with architect Pierre Cuypers, who by then had become famous for designing the Rijksmuseum and Central Station in Amsterdam. The baron and Cuypers agreed to build from the castle according to the original contours of the old castle. Cuypers' neo-Gothic architectural style, strongly reminiscent of the Middle Ages, fitted well with the baron's desire to turn the castle into a kind of family museum.
The Baron's lifestyle was anything but medieval. He was one of the first automobile and aircraft champions and president of the "Club Automobile de France" and the "Aéro Club de France. He also played an important role in this field in the Netherlands, becoming honorary president of the Dutch Automobile Club. During this period, Etienne organized, among other things, a car rally between Paris and Antwerp in 1898.
The baron and baroness also want to invite their friends and relations to the castle and impress them, and so all sorts of modern comforts come into the castle for the time. Hot and cold running water, central heating, electricity, a Turkish bath, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a passenger elevator. All this is very extravagant in the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century. Not even the queen has this much luxury.
The baron wanted to rebuild the castle and the park as a perfect ensemble, so that it gives an exact picture of how the castle used to be. Anno now, we also find in the castle something of the international, luxurious taste of the time where comfort goes hand in hand with a refined and precious furnishing. It was mainly the baron who, together with his guests, used De Haar as a country residence in August and later September.