Magdalena Poulle was born in Calais in northern France in 1632 and was christened in Amsterdam in 1644. She grew up with five brothers and one sister in a wealthy merchant family. Magdalena married twice and both times widowed, with no children. In 1680 she bought the ruin of a manor house called Gunterstein near the village of Breukelen in the province of Utrecht in the Dutch Republic, which had been devastated by the French invasion in 1672. The purchase of this house allowed Magdalena the title “Lady of the manor of Gunterstein and Tienhoven” a privilege she perhaps sought out since no new titles for nobility were being created at that time. By 1681 Gunterstein was rebuilt and the gardens…
