Maison 1945

2013-08-14. Today we visited ‘Maison 1945’ a.k.a ‘House of the Dolls’ which is an abandoned farm located in the middle of the woods, somewhere in The Netherlands. After an hour and a half drive at first we couldn’t locate the building because of our navigation systems sent us right into the fields. Somehow the street didn’t exist anymore.. In the back of our minds we started to think that maybe we drove this far for nothing, but we wouldn’t give up just yet. After a little sigaret and brainstorm break we decided to drive around the field to see what we would find there. After 15 minutes we entered the forest, ofcourse a good thing because we knew the old farm was located somewhere in the woods. Once we were into the woods i got the feeling we were driving in circles and still no sign of the old farm nor the street we were looking for. Suddenly i saw an unpaved road and said to my friend ‘Shall we try this?’. And so we agreed to drive along on that unpaved road. After a mile or so we found a streetsign that said this unpaved road was actually the street we were looking for! Finally, some good news! Now we had to find Maison 1945; The House of the Dolls. Ofcourse again easier said than done. We had to keep our eyes open while driving the unpaved street and when we got to a corner we were both supprised; We found it!! In the corner, between dense forest, bushes and overgrowth we got a glimpse of Maison 1945! We parked our car and were excited to start taking pictures as soon as possible, because in the meanwhile it was already 20.00 hrs; only two more hours to go before sunset. Making our way thru the bushes the first good view of Maison 1945 was this:

Maison 1945 has the house (right) and stables (left) under one roof.

We decided to move on and took some pics from between the house and stable:

The roof above us already partly collapsed but i just had to be under it to capture some photographs.

The image above is the stable which probably has seen better times.

Next we went inside of the farm and two things grabbed our attention. The smell was awfull and the place looked like a dumping ground. It seemed like lots of predecessors have visited Maison 1945 to trash the place, which we (as urban explorers), ofcourse don’t like. Our motto is to leave nothing but footprints and to take nothing but pictures. Other urban explorers already explained on their websites that the place had been trashed, but we just had to see it with our own eyes, but they were absolutely right. Carefully we had to move between all garbage and it was very hard to find a place to setup the camera tripod. We hoped to find some old stuff in Maison 1945 and we did find some, but we also noticed over ten refrigerators and the same amount of tv’s. I quess people from the neighborhood use Maison 1945 also as their dumping ground. For this reason i didn’t capture many images within the building, but i do like to share these with you:

We had the ability to use the stairs to the first floor, but once we got there we saw nothing than more garbage. The stairs to the attic was gone, but we didn’t bother because we thought it was way too dangerous to enter an already (partly) collapsed attic. In the meanwhile we already had our flashlights on, because the sun had been set. We wanted to capture more images, but due to several circumstances we just couldn’t. Then, it was time to go home. On to the next adventure!

Roundup:
Maison 1945 wasn’t really what we expected, but we are glad to have seen it with our own eyes. Anno 2013 the place has been trashed by vandals and locals seem to use the place as their dumping site. We didn’t find much related to WWII (items which should explain the name ‘Maison 1945’ nor did we find many (only a few) dolls, which should explain the maison’s nickname; ‘House of the Dolls’). The few pictures we took did make the trip worth it, but in our eyes, this place should be left alone. It’s becoming too dangerous and as urban explorer you don’t want to photograph people’s refrigerators and televisions.

General Information:
More information found on the internet will be added in this section soon. It’s nice to have some background information about the site you visited. Sadly i cannot tell if these are facts or fiction. I hope you enjoyed our story and pictures. Please leave a reply if you want. Thanks.