Hof van Kums

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Hof Kums-Van der Elst, in Zandvliet (municipality of Antwerp), is a country estate built in 1887 for M. Kums, a sailmaker from Antwerp, to a design attributed to Van Opstal. The eclectic brick building has two storeys beneath a roof combined with a crenellated attic. Its string courses, surrounds and pilasters are in sintered stone, and the south façade is organised around a central bay with a timber oriel beneath a stepped gable. The former winter greenhouses have lost their glass dome, but their composite columns survive, while brick outbuildings with gables and raking cornices extend to the east and south-east. The site still bears the marks of the Great War: in 1917 the German army lowered the tower and built a reinforced-concrete blockhouse to the north, close to an artillery position facing the Scheldt. In 1924 the property was converted into a farm. A former site surrounded by moats, now largely drained or filled in, the estate is in a poor state of repair and its park has been largely converted into meadow. It has been recognised as built heritage since 2019, notably under the heritage of the First World War.