Nieuwerhoek

This beautiful country estate was built in the 17th century by the Hoek family, an Amsterdam Mennonite merchant family. People who adhered to the Mennonite or Jewish faith were not allowed to join a guild or participate in city government. So they had to earn their money in free trade. They did so very successfully and became very rich. Here on the Vecht, many country estates, such as Nieuwerhoek, have been owned by Mennonite and Jewish merchants. The door under the balcony is now the back door, but used to be the front door because people always arrived over the water. The beech hedge has therefore been pruned as a kind of gateway. Only when the roads became more passable, from the 18th century, did diligences become more popular as a means of transport and the front door was often moved to the street side.

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