Castle Leva

Alken, Belgium, Belgium

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Castle Leva (Dutch: Kasteel Leva) is a small, picturesque manor house in the hamlet of Terkoest, part of the municipality of Alken in Limburg, Belgium, situated at Onze‑Lieve‑Vrouwstraat 40 and set within a large, wooded estate of about 15 hectares that includes a 2‑hectare park.

The site originally belonged to an older, more extensive water castle called Kasteel Saren, which appears on the Ferraris map of 1771–77 and the Atlas of Vicinal Roads of 1844 as a large, enclosed complex, and in 1848 that castle was bought by L. van Ham, eventually passing by inheritance in the female line to the De Leva family, who in 1938 demolished the old building and replaced it with the present small castle, designed by architect R. Gauthier.

The new building is a roughly square, white‑painted brick house with a raised ground floor on a natural‑stone base, marked by tower‑like and bay‑window projections at the corners, different roof shapes with domed elements above the towers, round and varied window openings, and a colonnaded gallery in front of the south‑west and part of the south‑east façades, while the roof is covered with natural slate from CUPA PIZARRAS, installed in a 2012 restoration.