Return to sender: How Ghent’s grand old post office became a luxury hotel

Return to sender: How Ghent’s grand old post office became a luxury hotel

By [Leo Cendrowicz](https://www.brusselstimes.com/author/leo-cendrowicz)

[What do you think?](https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2374713/return-to-sender-how-ghents-grand-old-post-office-became-a-luxury-hotel#comments)


**With its soaring turrets, ornate façades and unrivalled position overlooking Ghent’s historic waterfront, 1898 The Post is one of Belgium’s most striking hotels. But transforming a protected landmark into a luxury retreat was no simple task. Leo Cendrowicz meets the couple who took on the challenge – and have now given its former porter’s house a new lease of life.**

When husband-and-wife Geert De Paepe and Greet De Paepe-Kerkstoel bought Ghent’s magnificent former post office in 2014, they had no intention of becoming hoteliers. Their plan was rather more straightforward: turn the historic building into four enormous apartments, keep one for themselves and sell the other three.

Instead, they created [1898 The Post](https://www.1898thepost.com/), a luxury boutique hotel overlooking the city's celebrated Graslei waterfront. And last month, they expanded their hospitality venture with the opening of [1898 Porter’s House](https://www.1898portershouse.com/), a four-room retreat in the former porter’s residence next door to its award-winning sister hotel.

Neither project was quite what they originally envisaged.

“We fell in love with the building,” De Paepe recalls. “We looked at the rhythm of the windows and started asking architects what else we could do. And we came across the idea of a hotel.”


Even acquiring the property had been an ordeal. De Paepe, a property developer, knew the previous owner, who had run into financial difficulties. Negotiations with creditors collapsed when an undisclosed bankruptcy petition emerged, forcing him to start again with the administrators.

After finally securing the building, the couple faced a different question: could they create a hotel worthy of such an extraordinary address?

Few hotels in Belgium can rival its setting. Standing above the Graslei, the historic quayside where merchants once unloaded their goods, 1898 The Post overlooks the River Leie and one of Europe's most picturesque urban panoramas. Across the water, stepped gables rise above the Korenlei; behind the hotel, Ghent's medieval towers punctuate the skyline.

The building itself is almost absurdly photogenic. Its turrets, clock tower, pointed arches and richly carved stonework suggest something considerably older than its late-19th-century origins. Designed by architect Louis Cloquet, the former Hotel des Postes et des Télégraphes combines Neo-Gothic and Neo-Renaissance flourishes with the grandeur of a city at the height of its commercial confidence.