Historic greenhouses of Villa Augustus (kassen and Limonaia)

Dordrecht's water tower, the first in the city, was built in 1882 on the Noordendijk. Since 2007 it has housed, together with the neighbouring pumping-station building, the Villa Augustus hotel-restaurant, founded by the former operators of Hotel New York in Rotterdam. The garden occupies the site of the works' former basins: the wall of the Italian garden is built from fragments of the demolished basins.

The greenhouses come from elsewhere. According to an article on the restaurant's blog dated 15 September 2025, one of the co-owners came across two 1911 greenhouses at Leidsche Rijn near Utrecht in 2006, facing demolition; he just managed to save them and had them rebuilt in the kitchen garden. The garden's own page speaks of two restored greenhouses of 1910. The same owners also restored the great grape house and the orangery on the neighbouring Dordwijk estate, which is a separate site.

In 2010 the magazine Gardens Illustrated and the Garden Museum in London named the garden "Garden of the Year", the first non-English garden to receive the title, according to the official website. The Limonaia, a heated glasshouse for overwintering citrus, was built at Villa Augustus (allimone.nl, 2013).

The two kinds of building are quite distinct. In the Wikimedia Commons photographs of March 2014, the kitchen-garden greenhouses have a metal frame painted pale blue, glazing on the roof as on the sides and a glazed door on the gable; one of them runs alongside the "kanaal", a narrow stream pumped from the Vlij that also passes the Limonaia, goes under a green bridge and reaches the Wantij by a small cascade.

The Limonaia is a single-storey masonry building, with its name in lettering on the front, pierced by large glazed doors and topped by a partly glazed roof. It is heated and, according to a 2013 article, its many large glass doors stand open in fine weather. From May to October, when the lemon trees are outside, it serves as a hall for dinners and receptions. The grape house and the vegetable greenhouse in the kitchen garden are named by the garden's website without description. No architect, builder or floor areas are given.

In the two restored greenhouses the early crops are grown: lettuce, rocket, mustard, chervil and the first cauliflowers, together with the cold frames. On the restaurant terrace, lemon trees in large terracotta pots spend the summer outdoors, then overwinter in the Limonaia from November to April.

The rest of the 1.5-hectare garden is a production kitchen garden, growing whatever the Dutch climate allows, with edible flowers, espaliered fruit trees in varied forms (peacock's tail, candelabra, palmette, Belgian fence: apples, pears, peaches, figs, a mulberry), a standard-tree orchard, a soft-fruit cage, an Italian garden of box and yew, a pond and a small wood. The garden supplies the kitchen and the market of Villa Augustus.

The garden is open to visitors during the restaurant's opening hours, on the paths (no dogs). Allow an hour for the kitchen garden, the Italian garden, the pond, the orchard and the Limonaia. The kitchen-garden greenhouses can be seen from the paths. In autumn, string-quartet concerts take place on Sundays in the Limonaia; guided tours exist, with groups of up to twelve according to Dordrecht's urban-farming directory. From the Italian garden the view takes in the Wantij and, in the distance, the Merwede, the Noord and the Oude Maas.