Charming, large 1890sApartment in Central Oslo,Norway

Charming, large 1890sApartment in Central Oslo,Norway

«The Dream Area of Oslo’s Real Estate Agents». The Norwegian daily«Aftenposten» splashed the district (house in background of photo) acrossits front page: «Among Oslo’s most prestigious neighbourhoods», it stated.The area is called St.Hanshaugen and it has a rare combination of rural,quiet surroundings, good views from high grounds and 15-20 minutes walkto Oslo’s city centre, a bit like Regent’s Park in London. There are frequentbus service. Supermarkets, wine store and delicatessen near by.

The apartment is not the typical impersonal rental flat. It is filled with manyobjects of art, antiques and rarities. The building itself is from 1897 andconsists of 7 flats, all of them occupied by their owners. The rental apart-ment is on a high ground floor. It has windows on three sides, facing east,west and north. Entrance is from the east (below).The west side has onebedroom, the dining room, sitting room and veranda facing the magnificentpark across the quiet street; St.Hanshaugen is central Oslo’s highest point.

The entrance from the staircase (left, previous page) leads into the hallway(right, this page) with direct access to the sitting room, dining room andscullery. You will find a small bathroom (above) with toilet and shower onthe right hand side of the hall and a wardrobe on the same side (right).

In the winter you can usually gocross country skiing in the parkright outside the house. It might getextremely cold, but you will be snugand warm with double glazing, cen-tral heating and a roaring woodburning fireplace inside.

You may view the most spectacular sun-sets in the winter as early as 4 P.M....

...or a sunrise as early as 3 A.M. inthe summer. Sunset is about 10.30P.M. at this time of year.

Previous page:Front facade of the house. Rental apartment is on the groundfloor, left, with access to the veran-da from the sitting room.

Sitting room has TV, DVD, Stereo and CDs. A compre-hensive library of fine books, mainly in English.

Veranda is reached through this room, and fromhere you have a fine view across to the park.

The old Egyptians worshiped thesun, and their symbol, in the shapeof an «ISIS» is sculpted in bronzeand adorns the fireplace. It shows the sun dial in the middle,protected by two rattlesnakes, whilethe wings of a vulture seems tokeep it suspended in air, near thelight and the warmth.

The Norwegians worship theirwoodburning fireplaces, and there-

fore the ISIS has found its naturalplace here.

The «Homosaurus» (half man,half reptile) bronze sculpture guard-ing the fireplace is made by OlaEnstad, who also has made the«Eunuque» on the mantelpiece, andalso the «Hunting Trophies» adjourn-ing doorway and hallway. Most ofthe other sculptures are made byTone Thiis Schjetne and Nina Sundby.

Graphic art is by Frans Wiederbergand Bjørn Ransve, while the water-colours are by the owner.

The chandellier is early 20thcentury, unique in its material; notbrass but bronze.

The two gilded chairs are Louis16, while the red velvetchaizelounge and chairs are late19th century English.

Many of the English books are

from the English Folio Society, whilethere are some books in Norwegianand German, basically historybooks.

Carpets are old Persian, both inthe sitting room and the diningroom.

The furniture in the dining room(below) are late 19th century, prob-ably of German origin, while themodel boat is 1950s from Madeira.

There is an old fashioned piano in the dining room, slightly out of tune, butit gives a wonderful honky tonk sound, as from some western saloon in dis-tant times. Above the pioano are hanging two oval portraits of King HaakonVII and Queen Maud from the time around their coronation in 1905.

The dining table seats 8, but can easily be extended to take twice thenumber of guests. They will have the view out to the park, where duringsummer the sun sets at 10.30 P.M. In the window a scale model in 1:100 ofthe German Atlantic steamer «Kronprinzessin Cecilie» from 1906. In 1914she was steaming mid-Atlantic from New York towards Hamburg when sherecieved the telegram stating that war had broken out between Germany andGreat Britain. With her precious cargo of gold and silver she turned back toAmerican neutral waters and escaped the British prize-hungry battleships.

The chandelliers in the dining room was probably hanging in a Russianchurch before the Soviet Revolution in 1917. But it can also be of Polish ori-gin. Both coutries has the double headed eagle as their national symbols.

From the peak of the park you can see the whole of Oslo and the fjord.

The kitchen is facing east, and from one corner of it you can see the old barn on the farm «Voldeløkken» that is nextdoor neighbour. Imagine – a farm in the city centre! The kitchen is again traditional, but it has all modern facilitieslike dishwasher, fridge, freezer, microoven, electric coocker with oven and a gas coocker. There is a separate roomwith washing machine/tumble dryer. The door on the photo to the right leads to the former maid’s room, now a chil-dren’s room or «office» with internet cable and a writing table in front of the window. It has a «loft» – an elevatedbed and a small wardrobe. Below, this page: Detail from the park outside – two minutes away.

The present day layout plan (show-ing the bed arrangements) followsclosely the original lay out plan ofthe apartment by the architect Chr.Michaelsen from 1897. He was oneof the leading architects of his day.The design draws on a number ofstyles, new classical and baroquewith a distinct Dutch influence also.From the outside the building canappear to be a one-family’s home.The apartment itself had three for-mal rooms in the front facing west(the park), only one bedroom and amaid’s room. (Appearances meanteverything to the upper middleclasses at the time – and maybethey still do?). All the rooms whereequipped with coalburning ovens,central heating was only installedafter the First World War. There wasno veranda on the ground floororiginally, neither was there anopen fireplace. These items wheredesigned and installed by the pres-ent owner. Originally the facadewas much more ornately decorated.Some of it has been restored, how-ever.

There is a second, large bedroom facing west (above, this page). Ithas windows facing west and north, a small double bed and a sin-gle bed. A table and two chairs make this a second sitting roomalso, if you want some privacy from the rest of the party.

The master bedroom (below) has a large, lovely Victorian brassbed from 1865 (matresses are not vintage), a good sized armoire(wardrobe with Spanish castillo doors), Maroccoan ceiling lampand ensuite bathroom with bath tub, washbasin, toilet and bidét.Although they might look original, the items was installed by theowner some twenty years ago. The bidét was taken from a statelycountry house and has not been repaired since 1917. If still func-tions perfectly and is a sculpture in its own right.

Optional extrasOptional extras As an extra treat for guests whowant to explore something com-pletely different during their stay,special arrangements can be made.

15 minutes drive from the Osloapartment – or 30 minutes by boat– you can experience a romanticcandle-lit evening by the fjord,enjoying shrimps and white wine,listening to the sound of the wavesand maybe even have a swim.

AIR FRANCE Flight Magazine printedrecently a long article on why it isworth visiting Oslo. The whole arti-cle is reproduced here on the following 14 pages.

Also LUFTHANSA’s In FlightMagazine printed recently an article on Oslo which is well worthreading. It is reproduced here onthe following 4 pages.

For Holiday Lettings in Oslo please contact Morten PR Russell WedénTel. +47 22601010 mobile +47 92094083 E-mail: morten@tvfilm.no