Leonard van Veldhoven

Leonard van Veldhoven is a Dutch architect, hotelier and writer.

Biography
Leonard (Leonardus Theodorus Agatha) van Veldhoven (born 7 July 1947 in The Hague) is a Dutch architect, entrepreneur, and writer. Since 1989, he has been residing outside the Netherlands, and since 2005, he has been living in the book village of Montolieu in southern France, near the city of Carcassonne.

In 1975, he founded his architectural firm, Van Veldhoven Partners. In 1985 Van Veldhoven founded Bastion Hotels, a hotel chain which expanded to 32 locations, including one in Germany, over the following decade. Award: In April 1991, for his distinguished contribution with the Bastion Hotel chain to economic development, he was awarded the 1990 Award of Excellence by the European Community and the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

In 1995, Van Veldhoven shifted his focus from architecture and hospitality to travel and writing. His travels through the Americas from 1996 to 1999, and a subsequent six-year sailing journey beginning in 2000 with his wife, artist Miriam Janssen, inspired a series of travel narratives and a novel titled The White Sky.

Van Veldhoven has also contributed to the study of comtoise clocks, an iconic French timepiece. This resulted in the reference work MAYET MORBIER COMTOISE (in four languages) and the multilingual dictionary Comtoise-Morbier.

After relocating to Montolieu, France, in 2005, he continued his research into local history and clockmaking, resulting in publications that detail the village's heritage and the lives of a local clockmaking family through turbulent historical periods, such as Montolieu, son histoire et ses watchers and A box full of memories, chronicle of a French family in turbulent times: 1835-1964.