The Castle Home: Hallwylska Museet

The Hallwyl House is an amazing private collection of artwork and artifacts collected over the life time of Wilhelmina von Hallwyl. The house is open to the public, rented out for private events and holds special exhibitions. Admission is 80sek for a self guided tour or 100sek for a guided tour (includes admission). The guided tour includes the basement (wine cellar, kitchen) and the guest rooms which are not available on the guided tour. The museum is open year round with varying hours - http://hallwylskamuseet.se/en

Located in the heart of Stockholm City, The Hallwyl House at Hamngatan 4, was built between 1893-98 by the top Swedish architect at the time, Isak Gustaf Clason. The style of the house is described as Venetian Late Gothic and Early Spanish Renaissance. As money was no object regarding design, building materials and modern conveniences, it was the first house in Stockholm to have central heating and electric lighting in every room and running water in the bath. In 1898 the house cost 1.5 million SEK to build.

The homeowners were Walther and Wilhelmina von Hallwyl. Wilhelmina von Hallwyl was the only child of a very successful timber merchant (Wilhelm Kempe), who was independent enough to not worry about finding a husband at a debutante ball but waited for the real thing to come along. Walther von Hallwyl belonged to a prominent Swiss family. They met on holiday at a spa, married a year later and had four daughters.

Wilhelmina von Hallwyl collected a wide variety of items from her journeys always with the intention of the house becoming a museum one day. By today's standards she would have probably been diagnosed as ADHD and OCD because she collected such a wide variety of items (couldn't make up her mind?!)... china, guns, knives, swords, artwork, oriental mirrors, etc. and cataloged these items in incredibly neat and thorough, red leather bound volumes of books.

When the house was finished in 1898, Wilhelmina von Hallwyl was around 50 years old when they moved into the house so by that time they were empty-nesters, making this was their retirement home. In 1920 the von Hallwyls donated their home and its contents to the Swedish State which took effect (in 1930) only after both von Hallwyls had passed away.

The house remained closed to the public until 1938, until cataloging of the entire contents of the house (initiated by Countess von Hallwyl) was completed. The von Hallwyl Collection encompasses some 50,000 objects. Due to WWII the museum was closed for some time and reopened in 1945.