Nature house in Dilsen-Stokkem

A windmill dating from 1870 in Elen, converted into group accommodations for 18 people in the Meuse Valley. As you drive into Elen, you can already see it from a distance, rising above the rooftops: the body of a tower mill from 1870, with the gallery forming a ring around it. Inside, the staircase follows the curve of the wall, and the space becomes slightly smaller on each floor. Upstairs, the grinding mechanism is still in place, as the mill was restored to working order in 2009. Specialstays purchased it and converted it into group accommodations for eighteen people. Sleeping in a mill is different from sleeping in a vacation home. The walls are thick, outside noise fades away, and light streams in through openings that seem to turn with the day. The octagonal gallery runs high around the building, so you can walk from the morning sun on one side to the evening on the other without leaving the mill. From that gallery, you look out over the village and the flat Maasland surrounding it.

The mill has been a protected historic monument since 1978. That means the shell, the sails, and the inner workings cannot be altered without permission, and you can see that in every detail: the beams, shutters, and the axle have remained exactly as they were. The conversion into a guesthouse was built around the existing structure, not over it. So you’ll be sleeping in a working piece of nineteenth-century technology. Elen is located in Dilsen-Stokkem, on the Belgian side of the Meuse Valley. It’s a landscape of old gravel pits, dikes, and ferries, with bike route junctions that lead directly from the village into the countryside. Across the water lies Dutch Limburg; to the west, the Meuse Valley transitions into the forested and heathland region of the Hoge Kempen. For a group, this combination works well. During the day, everyone spreads out across the water, villages, and trails. In the evening, the group returns to a single building where the different floors naturally provide space for rest: those who want to go to bed early stay upstairs, while those who want to chat late into the night stay downstairs.