Paleis Het Loo, the Dutch royal hunting lodge and Baroque summer palace, located in the heart of the Netherlands, close to the town of Apeldoorn, was built between 1684 and 1686 on the site of a medieval hunting lodge, Het Oude Loo. With the intention to build a splendid hunting lodge on the site, which would compete with the country estates of other European royalty, Stadtholder Willem III, who ruled Britain alongside his wife and cousin Queen Mary II from 1689 to 8 March 1702, purchased the hunting lodge, along with the surrounding buildings, woods, estates and watercourses in 1684. As Willem III and Mary II were lovers of architecture and garden art, they intended to create a magnificent summer residence on the site, which would be used for hunting and entertaining the noble guests in royal splendour. Famous for its sumptuous interior and formal gardens, the symmetrical Dutch building of Paleis Het Loo, a former Dutch royal residence, was designed by Jacob Roman and Johan van Swieten. However, the garden was designed by Claude Desgotz, who extended the existing garden and built four pavilions, which connected the middle section of the palace with the East and West wings.

Although William III left his estates in the Netherlands to his cousin Johan Willem Frisoof the House of Nassau-Dietzin his Last Will, after his death in 1702, the King of Prussia claimed the property as one of the descendants of the Princes of Orange. Finally, out of most of the older properties, Friso’s son William IV, Prince of Orange, could take over only the Het Loo Palace and it served as a summer residence of the House of Orange-Nassau until 1795, when William V went into exile in England. In 1806, it became the property of Louis Napoleon, who was made King of Holland by his brother Napoleon Bonaparte.

By that time, the palace and the gardens fell into disrepair, but Louis Napoleon had the exterior of the palace radically changed and it was plastered in grey-white. He also had a romantic-styled landscape park laid over the 17th-century baroque gardens.

After many years in exile, Willem V returned to the Netherlands in 1813 and when he was inaugurated as King Willem I in 1815, Paleis Het Loo was declared as the summer residence of the head of state. From that time onwards, the palace served as a summer residence of the House of Orange-Nassau for more than a century, until the death of Queen Wilhelmina in 1962. Queen Wilhelminaadded an additional storey to the middle section of the palace in 1911 and also constructed several other buildings on the east side, although it partly destroyed the original symmetry of the palace.

However, when Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Wilhelmina fled to Britain and the palace was occupied by the German military. Nevertheless, she returned to the liberated Netherlands in 1948, but abdicated in favour of her daughter Juliana in September 1948 due to bad health and moved into an apartment in the west outer pavilion of her favourite Het Loo Palace, where she died on 28 November 1962.But after she ascended the throne, Queen Juliana, never lived in Paleis Het Loo,althoughher younger daughter, Princess Margriet lived in its right wing until 1975. The last royal residents of the palace, Princess Margriet and Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven, living in the east wing, moved out in 1975 and after a thorough restoration and reconstruction of the garden, following the 17th-century design, the palace was opened to the public as a museum in 1984.

The sumptuously furnished interior of Paleis Het Loo clearly exhibits an impression of how the Dutch royal family lived there for three centuries. The palace museum, spread over 40 rooms, is comprised of the main building, the Corps-de-Logis, flanked by two pavilions on either side, which are connected to service wings around the Bassecourt or main courtyard. The rooms are furnished and decorated as were typical during the various periods, exhibiting the gradual change of taste reflected in the change of furniture, art and customs from the late 17th to mid-20th centuries.

Its huge collection of portraits of royals, spread throughout the palace, includes a rare portrait of Princess Wilhelmina by Piet Mondrian, nested in the Art Cabinet of Willem II.

The East Wing of the palace, containing the royal kitchens with glass collections, is also included the exhibition areas for parts of the museum’s collection. While the upper floor houses the Museum of the Chancery of the Netherlands Orders of Knighthood, the museum staff have their offices in the former Orangery. On the opposite side, the West Wing of the palace, formerly the royal stables, houses the Balzaal or Ballroom restaurant. The low-level buildings of the stables, built between 1907 and 1909 at the orders of Queen Wilhelmina, is the Harnessing Area, where the royal coaches and carriages are exhibited. The crown of the collection is the Cadillac Convertible Sedan, bought in 1949 for the use of Princess Wilhelmina. While the stable complex is big enough to accommodate 88 horses, the middle of the building contains two large coach-houses, where the royal carriages, cars and sleighs are exhibited. Apart from the hunt and service carriages, along with the uniforms of the coachmen, there is a unique carriage, a white hearse, which was used at the funerals of Prince Hendrik and Queen Wilhelmina.

Although decorated with beautiful fountains like the Venus Fountain and several statues of Greek gods and goddesses,the gardens of Het Loo were rather modest in proportions compared to those of Versailles. However, the King’s Fountain at the rear of the Upper garden which rose above 42 feet (around 13 m) was the highest spouting fountain in Europe in those days. The most predominant tree in the garden is the Canadian maple on the croquet green, brought by Princess Juliana back from Canada, when she returned from exile after the Second World War. The Het Loo Palace is flanked by the private gardens of William and Mary, aptly named the King’s garden and the Queen’s garden. Mary’s garden contains an interesting collection of citrus trees, whose fruits and blossoms represent a symbol of the House of Orange.