Having spent the first thirteen years of life in ‘her beautiful Tervuren’ — Brussels’ answer to Paris’ Versailles — European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen frequently returns for the air, much fresher than the stuffy corridors of power in Brussels. And she is often seen walking or jogging with bodyguards in Tervuren’s amazing forest.
Like many a Eurocrat and tourist escaping from nearby Brussels, there’s one thing von der Leyen doesn’t get about Tervuren: why is the top tourist attraction, the café and restaurant by the lakes, not operating at full capacity? Instead of attracting tourists, expats and locals alike, the place has been abandoned to the cruel elements. So, what happened?
The Bootjeshuis burned down in November 2000. While some locals still point unfoundly at naughty teenagers from the town’s large expat community, police never clearly established the culprites. That unclarity may have been reason enough for insurers not to pay out the large sums to rebuild. Only in 2010 did the doors finally reopen. But the heavy financial burden from the past, inherited from unresolved fire insurance issues, and an unhelpful federal property office, forced closure in May 2016.
Conspiring against the reopening of the Boat House restaurant, together with the accompanying paddle boats, were the money and administrative power tussles between Tervuren grandees and Belgium’s Federal Property Office. And town grandees appeared more eager to attract clients and visitors a hundred meters away to the stylish café and restaurant at their newly opened €13 million cultural centre. After all the Boat House doesn’t belong to Tervuren town hall, but to the Federal Property Office.
Good with numbers, moonlighting by day as a senior insurance manager, Tervuren Mayor, Marc Charlier, refused to pay a rent till mid-century of €7,500 a year. After haggling with federal officials, the mayor has now pushed the price down to €3,500 a year for 40 years. Local councillor Serge Liesenborgh wonders whether the eight-year struggle was worth the difference. “With summer approaching, it would be scandalous to see this building rotting away. It’s a fantastic place,” he says. “It’s worth more than the €4,000 a year [price difference].”
Charlier says the 40-year contract would entail Tervuren paying to maintain and restore not only the Boat House but also the neighboring Royal Kitchen Gardens behind town hall as well as the magnificent Saint Hubertus Chapel, built at the beginning of the 17th century in an early Baroque style.
A provisional agreement to allow for the Boat House to be refurbished is now ready to be signed off. Hopefully more of a formality, the agreement, should not fall victim to busy federal politicians campaigning for reelection. Privately, officials are confident that the federal government’s signature will be forthcoming before June elections plunge Belgium into a year or more of political uncertainty.
The Boat House is currently empty, except for art exhibitions. When it finally reopens the Flemish Nature and Forest Agency is unlikely to allow reopening the boat rental service. Like many senior Tervurenaars, von der Leyen fondly remembers paddling out from the previous chalet.
Boat rentals were definitely an amazing tourist plus point for Tervuren. “Who hasn’t been there for a boat ride with their sweetheart?” a former alderman once said. “Unfortunately, I never went out on a paddle boat with a lover. Some of us have had a boring life,” counters Rosalyn, a Tervuren resident since 1988, although originally from Llanandras, in Wales.
Another native, Miriana Frattarola, also never had the opportunity to sail away with sweethearts on Tervuren’s choppy lakes. But she does remember the Bootjeshuis as a terrible teen. “My funniest memory is that of a girl falling in the lake because she wanted to show off how she could stand between two boats,” Miriana tells us.
A long-read version of this article is available at Tervuren+, a micro-level and multilingual community news service.
