In the 1840s, the municipality of Arnhem sold several hundred acres of heath land located in the north of the municipality. The sale placed the burdens and costs of the desired reclamation on the shoulders of the new owners. Most of the heath land, due to its infertility, was wooded with Scots pines, only a small part was converted into arable land. The reclamation of the "wasteland" was somewhat stimulated by the government, as the reclaimed land was largely exempted from the land tax for a period of 20 years. In the years 1845-1854, about 900 acres of heathland were sold. The new buyers include city architect Hendrik Jan Heuvelink, C.J. Frohnhauser, G. Pitlo, G.J. van Orsoy Veeren, A.F. Burgers and E.L. Baron van Voorst tot Voorst. They all belong to the wealthy class.

However, there are also day laborers, shepherds and farmers who want to buy a few bundles from the municipality. The municipality rarely allows this. The reason is that the people in question had often already settled illegally on the requested land. The reclamation farms founded by the large landowners and a few small reclaimers are mainly found along the Koningsweg, which around 1850 - probably at the same time as the construction and paving of the Kemperbergerweg, which partially received a new alignment. There we find farms such as Heidepol, Grijsoord, Mariazorg, Rijzenburg (Burgers), the Kruishorst, Wildhoeve (Orsoy Veeren), 't Heiderijk (Pitlo), Nieuwenhuizen, Petersburg, Leipzig, Nomen Nescio (Van Voorst tot Voorst), all built in these years. Most of these farms are still there today.

Source: 'Clearance of the moors in the municipality of Arnhem in the 19th century' by J. Hofman.

Published in 'Bijdragen en Mededelingen Deel LXXIV' Vereniging "Gelre" Arnhem.

In 1906 it is the Rotterdam merchant Ernst August Boden, made rich from plantations and mining in Indonesia, who buys Petersburg farm. In addition to the plots around the farm, he also buys the plots across Deelenseweg. He also takes over the adjacent plots of land, including the farm Nomen Nescio, from Baron van Voorts tot Voorst. Ernst Boden immediately starts building a fine hunting lodge. He gives his estate the name Zonheuvel. All photos show that Zonheuvel was mainly used to receive family members and guests and to relax. Ernst Boden does not sit idle and invests heavily in his acquired estate.

The Zonheuvel mansion had all the amenities that were needed. For example, the manor had its own water supply using a water tower that had a machine room at the bottom. This room contained a pump that drew water from the ground and brought it into a reservoir at the top of the tower. Also belonging to the manor was a bakehouse that consisted of two floors. Flour was stored on the upper one while people baked bread on the first floor. Atop the 30-meter-high water tower was a very striking windmill. On old maps it is marked "windmill." This windmill is also said to have generated electrical energy that was stored in batteries that were set up at the bottom of the tower in the machine room. These batteries returned their energy to the pump in the well. This could be one of the first forms of electrical power generation using a windmill. The windmill served until about 1919 after which this part of Schaarsbergen was connected to the public electricity grid.

(source: Dick Veerman, 'Deelen airfield, from burden to lust', 2004)

When in 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands, it appears that they had their eye on the Kemperheide to create an important airfield for their Luftwaffe. There had already been a primitive airfield on the Kemperheide for years. KLM regularly organized sightseeing flights from the Kemperheide. The Germans appear to have made inspections at the site well before the raid. Within a very short time, the so quiet Schaarsbergen (700 inhabitants) is flooded by a few thousand Germans and airfield (Fliegerhorst) Deelen is created. Everything north of the Koningsweg becomes forbidden territory with all its consequences for the adjacent estate Zonheuvel. The initial intention was to carry out attacks on England from here. When the English, in turn, intensified their air attacks on Germany, the air base was further expanded with a hypermodern interception system. For this purpose, a large new command bunker called Diogenes was commissioned in October 1943. Around the airfield, a ring road was built, called the "Roller Runway," and aircraft hangars camouflaged as farms were erected. On the south side of the Koningsweg, a complete village of these "farms" is built, called Klein- and Groot Heidekamp. The Zonheuvel country house is confiscated by the occupying forces.

In 1952, the grounds of the mansion were sold in part to the Municipality of Arnhem and in part to the Van de Kamp family who moved into the driver's house at the end of the war. The family turned the grounds into a campground called "Holiday Resort Petersburg. Given the housing shortage after the war and its convenient location, this was very interesting. Due to the scarcity of bowum materials, the existing gebowuen were converted into vacation homes. An old pigsty there still some on the foundations of the barns and kennels of hunting lodge Zonheuvel were used. The old bakery next to the water tower was also converted into a vacation home.