Kasteel Van Ommerstein (Kesselhof)

Dilsen-Stokkem, Belgium, Belgium

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Kasteel Van Ommerstein (also called Ommerstein Castle or Kesselhof) is a historic castle in the village of Rotem, part of the municipality of Dilsen‑Stokkem in Limburg, Belgium, located near an old arm of the Meuse and surrounded by ponds and a moat that still follows much of the original hors‑shaped trace of the site.

The history of the domain goes back to the 13th–14th century as a fortified, walled estate known under different names as “the Hof of Kessel, Ommerstein or Kriekenbeek”, and the lowest core of the building is a surviving donjon (tower‑house) and cellar system that once formed the heart of the feudal lordship of Kessel, while the main residence itself was rebuilt and enlarged from the 16th century onward and finally transformed in the 18th century into a neoclassical château that largely defines the present appearance of the building.

In the 19th century the castle was owned by Baron de Schiervel, a prominent politician who served as mayor of Rotem, president of the Senate and governor of East Flanders and Limburg, and his daughter married into the Moreau de Bellaing family, whose four generations lived at Ommerstein; in the 20th century the estate was partly modernised, with the drawbridge removed in 1905 and the gatehouses reduced in 1902, and between 1999 and 2007 the entire castle, park and lower farm underwent a complete, high‑end renovation that restored the roof in its original form and added modern luxury while preserving the historic character of the structure.