Hotel Spaander Art Collection

Harbourfront hotel whose walls are hung with paintings left by 19th-century artist guests

Since 1881, Hotel Spaander at Haven 15–19 has occupied a prime spot on the harbour front. In its early decades it became the gathering point for the artists who flooded into Volendam looking for picturesque fisherfolk in traditional dress. Many could not afford to pay their bills; instead, they left paintings — and the hotel took them. The result is a collection of several hundred works covering the corridors, stairwells, and bar, most depicting harbour scenes, boats, and local life.

The quality is uneven — this was never a curated collection — but walking the hotel's public rooms is a genuinely strange experience, like stumbling into an accidental museum. The bar is open to non-guests. Drinks are reasonably priced and the atmosphere is better here than on the tourist terrace outside.

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A story
Mr. Kaor was a Japanese admirer of the hotel who wrote weekly letters to the Spaander family for decades — yet never once made the journey to visit. When he died, a portrait painted from his photographs was hung in the bar, where it remains today.

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