Avonturia de Vogelkelder, the animal shop in the Loosduinen district of The Hague, is celebrating 50 years in business.
It began in the 1970s in the cellar of Jan Huybers’ house, and five decades later it is a large shop where animals, nature and a day out come together.
Donald Huybers, the founder’s son, looks back on the family firm and on his father’s dream.
Huybers was declared unfit for construction work in 1976 and decided to turn his hobby into his job.
With his wife Emely he opened De Vogelkelder in the 90 square metre cellar underneath their home, importing rare birds and selling them from the house.
Business was good. “Customers used our toilet and sometimes sat in the living room.
At a certain point my mother found that a bit much,” says Donald, who runs the shop with his brother Jimmy.
Moves to larger premises
After about six years the shop moved to Copernicuslaan, more than three times the size of the cellar and a sizeable space for a pet shop at the time.
In the middle of the shop floor Jan and Emely, by then heavily pregnant, built a small pond with a bridge, plants and a waterfall.
It went down well, and the business started to look beyond birds to other animals.
Jimmy and his girlfriend Tamara came to work in the shop, and after a while Donald did too.
“The shop became a bit too small to support three families,” he says.
In 1999 the family moved to Oude Haagweg, where it soon became clear that Jan wanted to think bigger.
He held the papers to import unusual animals, which caught the attention of Cees Dassers, who built animal enclosures for zoos and brought that expertise with him.
The two became close friends and set out to show customers animals and nature in a different way.
“At first my brother and I thought we were going to build another little pond, but my father started drawing lines on the floor and it just kept going,” Donald says.
The family worked on it together with Dassers.
In came a large pond with live animals that were there to be looked at rather than bought, along with a waterfall, caves and temples.
Jan wanted to try new things in other areas too.
The shop opened for children’s parties, went online with a webshop in 2004 and built events around animal themes.
“I came up with the idea of eating locusts and mealworms,” Donald says.
“I had seen it somewhere and thought it would be a kick to do it here.” The events were a hit, and Jan wanted to carry the momentum into something bigger again.
Donald and Jimmy felt they were fine where they were on Oude Haagweg, but their father decided it was time for the next step and pressed ahead.
The shop moved once more, into the building Avonturia still occupies.
The business after the founder’s death
Jan had seen his dream through, and he kept working in the shop until he died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 68.
Since then the family has increasingly found its own way within the business.
Donald turned to his great passion for reptiles: what started with two tubs of reptiles and a few tubs of crickets grew into a world of its own inside the shop.
The shop has kept changing, not only through the animals and their enclosures but also through the people who work there and come through the door.
Some staff have been part of the business for years, and many customers return, these days with their own children.
That may be the biggest change of the past 50 years: what began as one man’s hobby has become a family firm in which several generations have found their place.
Keeping an animal in this city also means knowing who to call when one falls ill.
