Steevliet Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Steevliet estate, in Melle, is first mentioned in 1677 as the property of Jehan Van de Vyvere, who is said to have built the "Speelgoed"; it is also known under the names De Sterre, De Warande and Kasteel Casier. In 1821 the jonkheer J. Veranneman sold it to the Ghent architect P.-D. Velleman (1769–1829), who remodelled the house in the Empire style. The Ghent industrialist J.-L. Casier bought it in 1836; his heirs kept it until the early twentieth century, after which several Ghent industrialists used it as their country residence until 1940. Around 1825 the house had two storeys over eleven bays, under a hipped slate roof with a lantern light, and a central rotunda on the south side; the north façade had a projecting central section with four giant columns and a pediment. The park, laid out in the eighteenth century, includes beech avenues, a star-shaped wood, ponds and moats; the former orangery has become a chapel. Since 1947 the site has housed a children's residential home under judicial supervision, now run by the youth support association Steevliet.