Our residence radiates comfort and
cosiness, the inhabitants are hospitable and at your service. Our medieval
city of Ghent has so much to offer that it is here impossible
to enumerate all activities or places of interest. Log on to site www.gent.be and
you will immediately find dates of activities corresponding to
your stay.
A bit of history
Behind the walls of the Beukelaar street is hidden an impressionable
example of industrial archaeology. Along the Groendreef one can
also find in the clay-bakery ‘Colpaert’ a great deal
of the antiquities. Starting with the flourishing traditional
brickyard trade to the contemporary ‘bed and breakfast’ was
an enormous step, it brings us back to 1833.
At the time the German family Keller produced fireproof pipes wherein
cokes were vaporized for the street lighting of Ghent. In 1863
Jan Sugg and Cie. took over the company then named ‘Produits
Réfractaires et Céramiques’. After the invention
of electricity in 1890 it was necessary to find a new line of production
and so was introduced the making of fireproof bricks for industrial
applications and for steam generators. In 1895 the site was divided
in three sections. One part was owned by De Meyer (later sold to
Colpaert) and remained a brick manufacturing company. The second
part was sold to Van Kerkhove & Gilson which turned it into
a file cutting factory and the third part (Absolute Home) became
the property of Mr. Sommer. Mr. Sommer is registered in the ‘Wegwijzer
van Gent’ as aircraft builder and lives there for five years.
In 1900 Mr. P. Glaude moves in as timber dealer. In 1920 the premises
are sold to L. Otten, a smith and carriage builder. Hiring out
coaches was also his speciality, witnesses of this can be found
in the grooves ground in the walls of the entry gate at the height
of the hub of the carriage wheel, there must have passed a great
number of them in the seventeen years he lived here to leave such
a mark. From 1927 on, the house was in hands of Noppe Josephus.
He began a jam factory. He died in 1973 and his wife who remained
there died in 1990. Her three inheritors sold the property to us.
A thorough renovation started and now in 2005 is almost completed.
The result is worth seeing and enjoying, come and see for yourself. |
