The Summer Houses
Many summer visitors return year after year, and several houses have remained in the same family for generations. New summer visitors are welcomed with open arms too. Gustafsberg is for everyone. In 1946, the Friends of Gustafsberg association was founded by spa guests, summer residents and others interested in Gustafsberg’s beauty and traditions. Government minister Zetterberg was one of its driving forces. The association still exists today.
Villa Carolina was built in 1850 as a summer villa for Carl Agrell, the mayor of Uddevalla, and Carl Lonner, the spa physician. The villa consists of two identical apartments, one owned by Agrell and the other by Lonner. Carl Lonner is said to have declared: “If I am not allowed to build a summer house here at Gustafsberg, I will resign as Gustafsberg’s spa physician.” Dr Lonner got his way. The house was named after the two men named Carl: Villa Carolina.
Skomakarbostaden, the Shoemaker’s House, seen in the photograph with children in front, already existed in the 1810s. Its projecting corner boxes reveal that it is a log building and show the position of its load-bearing walls. The shoemaker employed by the children’s home lived here. The building became a summer residence in the early 20th century.
Photo: Per Gustaf Bergin
Syskrinet, the large yellow house on the right-hand side of the slope, was built around 1840 by the board of the children’s home, probably to accommodate the growing number of spa guests. Along the path beside the house are pillars with carved faces. The foreman of an extension built in 1886 was a man of changeable moods. The faces are said to be caricatures of him carved by the carpenters.
The other yellow house, Villa Novilla, was moved to its present location in 1874 from Kungsgatan 26 in central Uddevalla.
Villa Klippan, the brown house on the left-hand side of the slope, was one of the first industrially manufactured houses. It was made in Gothenburg and transported to Gustafsberg as numbered planks. The house was assembled in 1885 on what was then known as the Bergenfeldt plot, on land belonging to the Gustafsberg Foundation. It was originally a summer residence.
Its name may refer to the rock on the property, but it may also come from the Klippan paper mill, in which the house’s first owner, Olivia Kullman, was a partner. The house was built in the Swiss chalet style and painted the characteristic brown colour of the period, although it was somewhat lighter than today. It is now a year-round residence.
