A few weeks ago the renovation of Klooster Watersley started. This monument will receive a complete renovation in which authentic details in the facade and the interior will be given a special place.
The oldest part of the monastery dates from 1752 and was originally built as a hunting lodge for the noble family Lovens-Delhougne. Later the complex was used by various monastic orders, it was a gymnasium and shelter for spiritual care. The monastery, which will be the entrance to the Sports & Talentpark, will have various functions and facilities. In the monastery, for example, there will be a hotel with 44 rooms, 29 luxury studios, offices, meeting rooms, a large gym, a tasting room, a food lab, and last but not least a complete health and performance center.
The first phase of the renovation of the monastery is aimed at delivering the 29 luxury studios. Some studios are furnished with a Tempy Unit. The Tempy Unit is a compact built-in and installation package, made from high-quality recycled sustainable materials. A kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet, and a cupboard space are incorporated in one unit. The facades of this part of the monastery have since been cleaned and the roof has been insulated. And a new roof layer has been installed. All windows in this part are currently being replaced. After completion in mid-2022, the part with the gym and the offices will start.
Tasting room and Foodlab
The tasting room in Klooster Watersley will be opening soon. With local products and pure ingredients from local farmers, from our vegetable garden, and with a landscaped food forest, the area around Watersley is put on the map. The products and dishes are prepared in our kitchen and produced in the organic food lab in the monastery, which consists of a bakery, pasta kitchen, cheese factory, mushroom and mushroom nursery, and sausage factory.
The tasting room is a warm and inviting meeting place for everyone. Every day our cook Jacco Walraven and his team prepare delicious dishes and various products with natural ingredients from our vegetable garden and the immediate vicinity.
Visitors are treated daily to a richly surprising range, which consists of artisanal and homemade pasta, sauces, bread and patisserie, and our own imported hams. The various loaves of bread are baked from spelled from the St. John's rye and Tritordeum flour from the immediate vicinity.
Tasting room and Foodlab
The spring-established food forest in the park is a form of agroforestry characterized by low-maintenance, sustainable, plant-based food production based on forest ecosystems, integrating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, perennials, and climbers, and where yields are primarily very useful to the athletes of Watersley Sports & Talent Park.
Being able to supply and exchange nutrients between crops makes a food forest a smart and sustainable system. For example, species that need a lot of nitrogen to bear fruit have a nitrogen-binding plant as a neighbor, which releases food with its dying leaves and roots that end up back in the cycle. This will result in a healthy, rich harvest.