Widerstandsnest 163 - Park Kostverloren

Kostverloren Park is located to the east of the Zandvoort city limits, between the railway, the golf course, and the Quarles van Uffordlaan (road). A remarkable symbiosis between reused fortification works and local plant and animal life can be witnessed in this park. The bowl-shaped dune park, once a part of the extensive property of the aristocratic Quarles van Ufford family, today measures about ten hectares (25 acres). In years past this area was a fertile potato-growing region, but the collection of drinking water for the city of Amsterdam has caused the groundwater to drop below agriculture-sustaining levels. Villas started to appear at the park’s edges at the beginning of the twentieth century,  and the local tourist board has built a playground that includes an aviary, a monkey-house, and a rose garden. During the Second World War, the park proved a to be an ideal, well-sheltered and camouflaged location for a German garrison, and the site eventually included thirty-five small shelters, a washroom/toilet building and a horse stable. The structures were nestled in the dunes and were defended by seven Tobruks (concrete machine-gun emplacements) located along the perimeter. The layout of each of shelter was identical: a single room measuring 4 x 3.60 meters with a door and two small windows penetrating one wall. An additional wall built in front of the door and windows  provided protection against bullets and shrapnel.

Reuse after the war
After the war, the property owner and a number of individuals from Amsterdam and Haarlem established the “Kostverloren Summer Camp”, leasing the shelters to the public as cabins. Camp regulations, rather paternalistic by today’s standards, restricted the rental season to May through August. The rent for these “bunker cabins” was initially set at 25 Dutch guilders (€11.00) for the whole summer rising to 400 guilders (€180.00) by 1975. Regulations stipulated that each tenant paint his  cabin’s interior and exterior every year using “inoffensive colors”. Pets, loud noises and all forms of political statement and activity were prohibited. Tenants tended to be young families with children. Priority was given to people who could claim medical necessity, i.e. those in need of healthy sea air. The tenants, who numbered about 150, all lowered the defensive wall located in front of their cabin door, enlarged the windows and installed space heaters. They brought in running water and installed bottled gas for cooking.

As years have passed by, these little white-washed cabins have blended into the landscape, so much so, that one has to look carefully to recognize them today. In the sixties, development started to threaten Kostverloren Park. The construction of a school and of some 450 new residences was only narrowly averted. In 1974, a retirement home, “Huis te Kostverloren”, was built in the southern part of the park. Construction of 18 additional residences along the southern edge was approved in 1978, forcing the demolition of ten (former) shelters and two Tobruks. The property was purchased in 1977 by a speculator who planned to first increase the rent five-fold, and ultimately to clear the entire compound. Luckily, this did not come to pass. The dunes north of Kostverloren Park have been zoned as an official nature reserve and the southern part – which includes the German works – are slated to be incorporated into the Zuid-Kennemerland National Park. The tenants, united in the Kostverloren Association, hope to have their special cabins included on the national historic registry. Today the bunker village lies hidden behind the houses along the Kostverlorenstraat and the Quarles van Uffordlaan, and only a few small trails provide access to the secluded dune park. Inside, the bustle of modern life seems far away. The wide, squat stable with an adjacent carriage house, sits in a low-lying central clearing. The thirty-some small shelters, converted into vacation cabins and hard to spot because of plantings and native vegetation, are tucked into the surrounding dunes. With some effort, visitors can discover the concrete gun-pits atop the dunes overlooking the bunker village. Hikers are welcome provided they respect the privacy of the tenants. The area is an oasis of peace, where plants and wildlife can flourish in a retreat of exceptional quality. This type of assimilation of abandoned 20th century defense works into a natural environment, in turn surrounded by housing developments, is rare. It is remarkable that the entire compound, not just individual objects, has remained in use by private citizens to this day.