Sweden’s oldest seaside resort
Before Gustafsberg became a popular seaside resort, visitors came for the water from its health spring. The mineral-rich water was believed to cure ailments ranging from paralysis and hysteria to rickets.
Drinking water from health springs had become fashionable by the early 18th century. In 1729, Jacob Boethius, a physician in Gothenburg, was commissioned to examine the water quality at Baggetofta, as Gustafsberg was then known. He found it excellent.
Depending on the ailment and the doctor’s prescription, visitors drank a glass of natural spring water every fifteen or thirty minutes in the belief that it would cure one of the many conditions the water was said to relieve.
For additional health benefits, salt-water bathing was introduced alongside drinking the spring water in the 1780s. Gustafsberg can therefore be regarded as Sweden’s first seaside resort. Its lush, hilly setting beside the sea made it a highly sought-after destination.
Gustafsberg truly began to flourish after King Gustav IV Adolf and Queen Fredrika brought their frail young son Gustav here in 1804. The sickly crown prince recovered after the salt-water baths, and visitors flocked to the resort.
With Gustafsberg enjoying this new popularity, two warm bathhouses were built in 1814. The more elegant one is now Varmbadhuset Hostel. The other was Sjostugan, the bathhouse for poorer visitors, which is now our simpler hostel by the steamship pier.
When the two bathhouses were completed, Gustafsberg once again welcomed distinguished guests. This time King Karl XIII and Queen Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta arrived together with Sweden’s new crown prince, Karl Johan Bernadotte. The queen spent six weeks taking beneficial baths, while the king, crown prince and their entourage departed on a campaign in Norway. The conflict ended in the summer of 1814 with the Swedish-Norwegian union, which lasted for almost 100 years.
By the 1830s, Gustafsberg was the seaside resort everyone wanted to visit. Prominent figures of the time, including Lars Hierta, Fredrika Bremer, Esaias Tegner and Wilhelm von Braun, signed the guest book.
After the two bathhouses opened in 1814, several buildings in the area were constructed as guest houses for distinguished summer visitors. They were given names such as Grevegarden, Tvaan, Slottet and Snackan, which they retain today. When interest in Gustafsberg as a seaside resort later declined, around ten private villas were built here by wealthy Uddevalla families.
Until the 1850s, Gustafsberg was Sweden’s most exclusive seaside resort. In addition to taking health-giving baths, guests spent their days walking in the park and talking. In the evenings they enjoyed musical salons, theatre performances and elegant balls in Societetssalongen. Many mothers brought their marriageable daughters here in the hope of finding a suitable future son-in-law.