Strandhotel Zoomers – Castricum aan Zee, The Netherlands
Barefoot Dutch design where the dunes end and the North Sea begins.
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● Just 12 rooms tucked against the dunes of Castricum aan Zee, making this one of the Dutch coast’s most intimate design stays.
● Interiors by The Other Season, with Dutch design brand HKliving, translate the colours and textures of the surrounding beach into linen, bamboo, timber and sandy neutrals.
● The hotel grew naturally from the much-loved Zoomers Beach Pavilion next door — so good food, wine and long days by the sea were part of the story before there was even a hotel.
Sleep Among the Dunes
There are beachfront hotels, and then there are hotels where the beach seems to have wandered indoors. Strandhotel Zoomers belongs firmly to the latter. Completed in 2020 by Breddels Architecten, the small timber-clad building nestles into the dunes at Castricum aan Zee, with little separating guests from sand, marram grass and the North Sea. The idea came from a very simple observation. After opening Zoomers Beach Pavilion in 2007, its owners discovered that guests enjoying local food, good wine and the beach weren’t particularly keen to leave. So they gave them somewhere to sleep.
Designed in the Colours of Castricum
The architecture deliberately keeps a low profile. Different shades of timber wrap the exterior, allowing the building to sit naturally against the dunes. Inside, designers Jasmijn Boots and Marry Broersen of The Other Season continued that landscape rather than competing with it. Sand becomes sandy-beige linen. Dune grasses return as bamboo and natural fibres. Timber, woven rugs, ceramics and exposed concrete introduce texture without disturbing the calm. Dutch interiors brand HKliving supplied many of the pieces, giving the rooms a distinctly contemporary Dutch character without turning them into design showrooms. Everything feels relaxed enough to survive sandy feet.
12 Rooms, Two Directions
The hotel’s 12 rooms are divided by one particularly important question: Dunes or sea? Smaller rooms look towards the grasses and shifting landscape behind the beach, while the larger rooms turn towards the North Sea. There is also an apartment-style option with its own garden, particularly useful for families. White walls and exposed concrete ceilings provide a deliberately simple backdrop. Bamboo cupboards, armchairs, generous lamps, striped cushions, washed linens and carefully chosen ceramics bring warmth. Small terraces extend the rooms outside, while kitchenettes make longer stays surprisingly easy. It’s uncomplicated design, but that is precisely the point.
The Beach Pavilion Came First
Strandhotel Zoomers doesn’t need to manufacture a hotel restaurant concept. Its restaurant was already here. A few steps away, Zoomers Beach Pavilion has been drawing people to Castricum’s shoreline since 2007 with its straightforward approach to food: good ingredients, local products and bottles worth lingering over. That relationship changes the rhythm of the hotel. Breakfast can begin quietly inside, but much of the day inevitably migrates towards the pavilion and beach. Lunch becomes drinks. Drinks become dinner. And suddenly going back to Amsterdam seems considerably less urgent.
The Other Side of the Dutch Coast
Castricum aan Zee offers a very different version of the Netherlands from Amsterdam’s canals or the polished beach clubs farther south. Behind the hotel lies a broad landscape of dunes and nature reserves; in front of it, nothing but beach and North Sea. That makes Zoomers particularly good at something increasingly difficult to design deliberately: doing very little. Walk. Cycle. Swim when the North Sea permits it. Eat something. Open a bottle of wine. Watch the weather change. Repeat tomorrow.
Dutch Design, Without the Design Speech
What makes Strandhotel Zoomers work is its restraint. There are recognisable design names and carefully considered materials, but none of it tries particularly hard to impress. The interiors simply take their cues from what is already outside the window. Bamboo, linen, timber, concrete, sand and muted colour. At many coastal hotels, the beach is the view. At Zoomers, it became the interior designer.
