Welgelegen
Today Henry Hope is best known for his summer home, the Villa Welgelegen. Thanks to his command of English, French, and Dutch, he was adept at establishing far-flung business relationships, and he had many influential friends. He acquired a large art collection and built the villa Welgelegen in Haarlem to house the collection. The villa was erected on the grounds of a former summer home he had acquired in 1769 on the Haarlem border of Heemstede. Building this summer palace, a five-year project, became a summer attraction in its own right, rivaling the neighboring park, Groenendaal, established in Heemstede by his cousin, partner, and neighbor, Jan (John) Hope. In 1781, Henry started receiving uninvited visitors to view the gardens and expansion process. The execution of these ambitious plans did not seem to make a dent in his enormous wealth; in 1782, he purchased Hope Lodge (Fort Washington, Pennsylvania) as a wedding gift for the son of his American cousin, Maria Ellis.
At Welgelegen he received many of the important figures of the day, and, during the summer each year, he was a neighbor of many of them. As an American (though considered English until well into the 1780s), he knew and received the Americans, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, who came to Europe for trade negotiations. Henry Hope was an Orangist and received the future William V of Orange whom he knew through his uncle, the elder Thomas Hope. Prince William's wife, Wilhelmina of Prussia, Princess of Orange, spent her summers there after her husband's death until her own death in 1820.
Henry is said to have been influenced in his choice of the Neo-Classical style by the Hôtel de Salm in Paris, built in 1782 by his friend Frédéric III, Rhinegrave of Salm-Kyrburg. Thomas Jefferson made sketches of both buildings. This Prince de Salm was a business relation as well as a friend, and he became, during the 'Patriotic Period' (1782-1787), a mediator between France and the Netherlands and the leader of a patriotic defense at Utrecht in September 1787. After his defeat, the prince, heavily criticized, fled to Amsterdam where, it is said, he hid in Henry Hope's house on the Keizersgracht for months.
Read more about this topic: Henry Hope