Pastoor van Laakstraat 54, Lent
Het Witte Huis on the road to the north
An inn is nothing more than this: a place along the road where you walk in and stay a while. Het Witte Huis has been doing that since 1936, and for three generations the same family did it.
Where it begins
The crossing
Lent is on the wrong side of the Waal, they say in Nijmegen. On the right side, they say in Lent.
Anyone heading north from Nijmegen had to cross the river here. First by ferry, later over the bridge. And whoever crosses a river arrives on the other side thirsty, hungry or with a night to get through. Inns stand in places like that. That is no coincidence, that is geography.
Bernard Bouwmeister understood that better than anyone. He was head conductor with the Betuwe steam tram and had an idea at the tram station that stood right opposite the ferry: there ought to be a café there. He called it Tramstation. Alongside that he ran a dairy shop, a taxi company, a storage place for bicycles and the parcel delivery, and he sat on the municipal council of Elst as well, because back then Lent belonged to Elst. Taking things easy was not his thing.
When the tram line disappeared in the nineteen thirties, he built something new along the main road. A white house. Everyone simply called it that: Het Witte Huis.
1936
The third of February, the first stone
There is a stone set in the wall. It reads: FIRST STONE LAID BY BENNIE BOUWMEISTER 3 FEBRUARY 1936. Bennie was almost certainly the builder's young son, about fifteen years old, who would later become the second generation himself. That is how it went: the boy lays the stone, and thirty years later he is standing in the kitchen.
Three months later the building was finished. On Saturday 9 May 1936 the door opened, with a string orchestra and free entry, from half past seven until half past ten in the evening. The Monday after that there was an opening ball. Entry twenty five cents, everything included. The address was still called Kleidijk then, and the telephone number was 45. Two digits were enough in Lent.
The Waalbrug had only just opened. Eating cherries on the terrace, with music, on the far side of the river. That is how Het Witte Huis began.
There was a liquor store attached as well, called De Lus, named after the traffic loop in the main road out front. And a hotel, and a dairy shop, and that taxi company. It was less a restaurant than a complete village business under one roof.
The hall that belonged to everyone
Where Lent came together
In February 1938 Princess Beatrix was born. Three hundred children from the three primary schools and the infant school walked in procession to the big hall of Het Witte Huis, which the owner had generously made available. In the evening the adults came. The chairman noted to his great delight that literally not one more person could fit in. The whole building, side rooms included, was packed to the rafters.
That is how it worked here. The notary held his auctions there. The family doctor came to live right next door, at Kleidijk 30. Clubs and societies held their meetings there, people danced on Queen's Day, and every year the business wished friends, acquaintances and patrons health and happiness for the new year in the newspaper.
1940
The tenth of May, eight in the evening
On 10 May 1940 Het Witte Huis was not a restaurant. Nothing was cooked and nothing was poured. Het Witte Huis housed the command post of the commander of the 8th Border Battalion, reserve major J. Clerk.
It was the first day of the war. Around eight in the evening the order came in here to withdraw to the Betuwe Line, near Kesteren and Ochten. With that, Lent was left to its fate and the defence of this bank of the river was over before it had properly begun.
It is not a story to sell a restaurant with. It is the story of this building though, and it belongs here. There was a time when maps lay on these tables instead of plates.
1944
A cinema at the front line
In the winter of 1944 Lent lay on the front line. The women and children had been evacuated, the village was all but empty, and whatever was still standing stood under fire. Police sergeant Bloemsma kept a diary, and Het Witte Huis keeps coming back in it.
Canadian officers were billeted in three of the rooms. There was theft, at Bouwmeister's place too, where Bloemsma would stay on for a chat. And films were shown. In the hall, half past eight in the evening, for British and Canadian soldiers, with the same faces every time as in October and November. When a boy went missing in February 1945, it turned out he was simply sitting in the film with the English in Het Witte Huis.
Three rows of tanks at the door, and inside the projector was running. After the liberation the damage commission held its sessions here, and so did the district office for war victims. The newspaper later summed it up briefly: during the war Het Witte Huis became the administrative centre for the whole Betuwe.
After that
The village that became a city
In 1966 the municipal council of Elst decided that Kleidijk would from then on be called Pastoor van Laakstraat, after the parish priest who had died the year before. The Protestant minority was not happy about it, because their church stood on that same street, and their minister wrote an open letter to the council. One council member pointed out that Kleidijk really was a historic name, one that had appeared in official documents for a hundred years. The council let its decision stand. And so Kleidijk 32 became the address we have today.
After that Nijmegen came across the river. De Waalsprong turned the meadows behind Lent into a new town with its own streets, schools and a station. The dike was moved inland, a side channel was dug, and ever since there has been an island right in front of the village. If you drive from the bridge towards Lent today, you see water where there used to be land.
Het Witte Huis stayed standing where it stood. And that has a pleasant side effect. If you drive into Nijmegen from the north, you see this white building before you see the Waalbrug. We find that just as iconic. The Waalbrug will dispute that, but then it has only been there since 1936, exactly like us.
1936 to 2012
Three generations of Bouwmeisters
Bernard Bouwmeister started it, and remained the face of the business until his death in 1958. His wife Johanna was killed in an accident in 1954 right in front of the door, stepping off the bus on the main road. In 1955 the family celebrated twenty five years in the hotel trade, with a reception attended by the mayor of Elst and just about every local club and society.
The second generation were Ben en Door Bouwmeister. They carried the business on, rebuilt the premises and led the kitchen brigade that fed thousands of day trippers and travelling salesmen. Anyone driving from the north to Nijmegen ate their dinner here.
The third generation were Jos en Marijke Bouwmeister. They renovated the entire building once more and ran it until April 2012, seventy six years after a boy of fifteen laid the first stone. In 2006, at the seventieth anniversary, a small art post was placed in front of the door. The family themselves call it not a boundary post but a milestone.
2019
Pasta comes to the table
In the autumn of 2018 Het Witte Huis was up for sale. The landlord was seventy one, his body no longer played along, and after years behind the bar and in the dining room it had been enough.
René en Nancy Godding took it over and opened Osteria Pomodoro on 2 January 2019, with a plan that raised a few eyebrows in Lent. No more function hall, no more funeral lunches. Italian. And not with a menu where you choose a single dish, but with a menu you eat from all evening long.
The name says exactly what happened. Osteria means inn, which is what Het Witte Huis had already been since 1936. Pomodoro means tomato, the main ingredient of Italian cooking. The old and the new, in two words.
Today
What has stayed
More has stayed the same than you would think.
People still stop here because they are on their way somewhere, or because they have just come over the bridge. It is still about sitting for a long time, about one more round, about a table that is just a little too full. Only now it is called antipasti instead of a snack platter, and a children's paradise is tucked away behind the hall where people once held meetings and watched films.
An inn is a place where you walk in without an appointment and stay longer than you planned. That is what we do our best for, every evening we are open.
Curious what comes to the table these days? See the menu
Our sources
Where this story comes from
We would rather write nothing down than something that is not right. This is what this story says and this is what it is based on.
- Bernard Bouwmeister, the tram and Café Tramstation. Geldersch Dagblad, 3 May 1955, Silver jubilee of Het Witte Huis. It says there that he was a chief with the Betuwse Tram, that he opened a café by the tram station opposite the ferry which he called Tramstation, and that on 1 May 1936 he moved his business to Het Witte Huis and expanded it with a hotel and restaurant, a taxi company and a dairy.
- The first stone, 3 February 1936. The stone itself, still in the facade of the building. That Bennie was almost certainly the son and not the father we deduce from the family announcements: in business the founder always called himself B. P. Bouwmeister and was fifty five in 1936, while his son Ben, who bore the same name, was about fifteen at the time. No newspaper report about the laying of the stone itself has been found.
- The opening on 9 May 1936. Advertisement in the Provinciale Geldersche en Nijmeegsche Courant of 8 May 1936, with a string orchestra, free entry and an opening ball for twenty five cents. The telephone number 45 and the address Kleidijk K 214 appear in the list of new telephone connections of 9 May 1936.
- Eating cherries, June 1936. Advertisement in the same newspaper, 29 June 1936.
- The big hall in February 1938. How the joyful event was celebrated in Lent, Provinciale Geldersche en Nijmeegsche Courant, 3 February 1938.
- The command post in May 1940. TracesOfWar, Het Witte Huis Lent, Pastoor van Laakstraat 54, based on the battle report of reserve major J. Clerk, commander of the 8th Border Battalion.
- The winter of 1944 and 1945. Diary of police sergeant Bloemsma in Lent, transcription held at the Regionaal Archief Nijmegen, archive 579, inventory number 865. It is the source for the Canadian billeting, the film evenings in the hall, the missing boy and the three rows of tanks on the main road. That Het Witte Huis gave shelter to municipal services during the war and became the administrative centre for the Betuwe is stated in the jubilee article of 1955.
- Kleidijk became Pastoor van Laakstraat, 1966. Reporting in de Volkskrant of 28 May and 4 June 1966, the Algemeen Dagblad of 27 May 1966 and Het Vrije Volk of 1 June 1966 about the protest against the new street name.
- Three generations until April 2012. Jos Bouwmeister in the booklet Het Geheim van Lent, the 2025 edition by the Geheim van Lent working group together with the municipality of Nijmegen, at art post 1, Mijlpaal. It describes the whole line, from his grandfather by way of his parents Door and Ben to himself and Marijke, along with the art post from 2006 marking the seventieth anniversary.
- The accident in 1954. Algemeen Dagblad, 23 December 1954, and the family announcement in the Geldersch Dagblad of 22 December 1954.
- The takeover in 2018 and 2019. Reporting in the regional press of November 2018 about the sale of Het Witte Huis and the relaunch on 2 January 2019 as an Italian restaurant.
- The photographs. The picture postcard and the photograph taken on Kleidijk come from the photo collection of the Regionaal Archief Nijmegen, document numbers F73418 and F73409, both public domain. The photograph of the first stone is our own.
- Osteria and pomodoro. The explanation on our own menu: osteria loosely translated means inn, and pomodoro means tomato.
Do you know more about Het Witte Huis? Do you have a photo, a story or a postcard from the old days? Walk in and tell us, we would love to hear it.