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Wolwevershaven, DordrechtMelaveh

The house

Oak frame, brick front, pine floors, a neck gable of 1884 and a vaulted souterrain that is older than the house above it.

Before it was this

A timber merchant named it after himself in 1731 and his family held it until 1838. It was a warehouse from then until 1904, flats from 1904 until 1979, offices from 1981 until 1998, and empty from 1998 until 2007, which is the part that did the damage. Nine winters without heat opened every joint in the roof.

The souterrain is older. The vault is fifteenth century and belonged to whatever stood here before the house, which the records do not name. It is the reason the ground floor sits eleven steps above the quay instead of six, and the reason the front wall is 640 millimetres thick at that level.

2014 to 2016

  • The roof was taken off, the rotten feet of eleven rafters were scarfed, and it went back on with the original pantiles plus about four hundred new ones.
  • Eight partitions came out. Two bathrooms that had been stacked in the stairwell came out with them.
  • Every floor was lifted, the joists were checked, four were sistered, and the boards went back in the order they came up.
  • The souterrain was tanked, which took three attempts, and lined with a leaf that stands clear of the vault.
  • Heating was put in to the floors rather than on the walls, because there are no walls to spare.

What the listing protects

The front, including the gable and the sandstone band. The hoist beam. The stair, the balustrade and the newel. The souterrain vault. Four beams on the first floor with their original mouldings. None of that may be altered, and none of it needed to be.

The quay wall

The house stands on it. The wall was rebuilt in 1892 and again in 1974, and the hatch through which wool came in is in the 1892 section, bricked and left legible. It is the only part of the building that is below water at high tide, and it is also the only part the insurer asks about every year.

Who works here

Seven people. Two on the desk, two in the kitchen, two on the rooms, and one on the souterrain door and counter with a second person on Friday and Saturday. Nobody works the door until they have worked a season in the house first.

Section through the house, souterrain to attic Five levels behind one front. The souterrain is half below the quay, with the gaming room in its front half. Above it the hall and the desk, then three floors of rooms, then the attic with its hoist beam. hoist beam Attic Third floor, two rooms Second floor, three rooms First floor, two rooms Hall, desk and the back room Souterrain: the gaming room quay level six steps down, twenty-five paces, all of it inside
Five levels behind one front, six metres and twenty wide.
The low table in the first-floor sitting room
The low table in the first-floor sitting room, which stands where the merchant's clerk had his desk.

All gaming in this house happens in one room of it and nowhere else. The Melaveh Room runs nothing online, opens no account for anyone and settles no payment through this website.