The Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse is an 18th-century city palace in the Belgian city of Ghent. It is located in the Veldstraat. It was a possession of the D'Hane de Steenhuyse family for a while.
History
The building was built in 1768–1773 by Jan Baptist Simoens, who designed and built the rear facade and the salle à l'italienne with certainty. The façade was perhaps designed by David 't Kindt, but archival evidence is not of this. Around the beginning of the 19th century, the building was used for the noble society, culminating in the stay in 1815 of King Louis XVIII expelled from France. With his court he ruled from the hotel in exile. Afterward, he gave his host, as a thank you, a porcelain dessert service that is now kept in the STAM. In the twentieth century the hotel fell into disuse. The Museum of the Hundred Days was accommodated there in 1949, but without much success. In 1981, the building became the property ofthe city of Ghent, which first included an information center and later the Monuments Management Service. In the 1990s it underwent a thorough renovation. Public access was, however, very limited. In 2015, the ground floor was opened for commercial activities.
Owners
Three generations of the D'Hane de Steenhuyse family built the hotel:
Count Emmanuel Ignace d'Hane : main building and frontage
Count Pierre Emmanuel d'Hane de Leeuwergem : extension and garden facade
Count Jean-Baptiste d'Hane de Steenhuyse : decoration and interior decoration
After the extinction of the male line, the city palace came into the hands of Valerie van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie.
Famous guests
Under Jean-Baptiste the building saw a coming and going of the big ones of Europe:
The building was built on the gradually acquired heirs of the older houses. That explains the irregular shape of the façade. The aim was to maximize the utilization of the available space, so that the building line was followed. This explains the protruding middle part of the façade. By integrating the building between existing buildings, the ground plan was also adjusted. Usually, such hotels had a central entrance that provided access to the vestibule. The vestibule was perpendicular to the facade. Left and right of the vestibule were the rooms, symmetrical with respect to each other. In the case of Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse, the symmetrical floor plan was abandoned. The only access to the building consists of a coach portal located at the end of the façade. This coach portal provides access to the tuhaus located behind the building in the garden. This access is connected to the vestibule, which is perpendicular to it. The rooms are arranged around the vestibule. The rooms were not only accessible separately via the vestibule, they were also connected by the mutual passageways. Moreover, there was a system of hidden passageways, so that the staff could discreetly enter the rooms. In addition, the building has a courtyard with terrace. This was laid out in 1773 in pure Louis XVI style.
Facades
The building has two facades. The main facade in Louis XV style is located on the Veldstraat. It contains both baroque and rococo elements. The facade has a protruding middle part with Corinthian half-columns and a segment arch fronton. The rear facade is in neoclassical Louis XVI style. Unlike the front facade, the rear facade has three horizontal sections. The bottom is conceived as a pedestal. The façade has pilasters and a pediment. It is adjacent to the courtyard.
Rooms
The spaces on the ground floor have a representative function. They are salons and halls that are typical of the rich societyl life of the well-to-do social classes at the time. Especially the high ballroom à l'italienne is richly decorated with ceiling paintings, mirrors, an honorary staircase and a parquet floor signed Henri Feylt. The rooms on the floor were more discreet. One can find bedrooms of the gentleman and the lady of the house, a library, a room for collections and other rooms. The cellars were used as service spaces. They are older than the hotel itself. During the construction of the hotel, the vaulted cellars of the houses that used to be there were simply retained and adapted. The staff lived in unheated rooms under the roof. The rooms were furnished with a lot of attention for symmetry and hierarchy. The walls were arranged as symmetrically as possible with wall plates, windows, wallpaper, real and false doors. The wall with chimney was considered the most important. Each room had its own color scheme. The names of the rooms, such as boudoir, cabinet and the like bear witness to French influence.
