She bought the property and associated title after the former castle and stronghold was destroyed by the French in the Disaster Year Rampjaar 1672.

[2] The wealthy Amsterdam widow Magdalena Poulle bought the castle in 1680 and called herself Lady Gunterstein from then onwards.

She planned to leave the house to her nephew Pieter and had him lay the first stone at age three.

This book contains one of the earliest pictures of a Dutch orangerie with hothouses, and was highly influential on later botanists and wealthy garden owners such as Agnes Block and George Clifford III, who also sought to grow unusual plants and record them in albums.

The surrounding park which is open to the public, is protected as a rijksmonument, as well as all of the older structures around it.