A toast to Skagen

The first thing that strikes you, is the light, the light of Skagen, maybe because it´s so special or just because it´s so famous, hard to know. In the end of the 19th century, Scandinavian artists were drawn to Skagen by rumours of the magic light. Soon enough, the loosely organised artist colony became known as the Skagen painters. Among them several were to be famous, such as the Danish married couples P.S and Marie Krøyer and Michael and Anna Ancher. Among other prominent members were the Danes Holger Drachmann and Viggo Johansen as well as the Swedes Wilhelm von Gegerfelt and Oscar Börck along with Norwegian Christian, all painters, and artists like Danish author Georg Brandes and Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén, to mention a few.

Early on, Brøndum Hotel became the hub of their social life, and in a way a prerequisite of the movement. Poor artists were generously offered food and accommodation and paid in kind. Without Brøndum, no colony, no plein air painting, no Scandinavian or at least Danish impressionism the way it tuned out. Some of the guests even married into the owner family Brøndum, among them Michael Ancher, thereby strengthening ties.

Skagen painters’ motifs, notably Krøyer’s, are since spread to every corner of the world on postcards with women strolling along the south beach of Skagen wearing thin, white linen and lace Edwardian dresses and wide brim picture hats. Krøyer’s paintings were dreamlike visions, one of them portrays his wife Marie and Anna Ancher having a heart-to-heart, secrete words that might destroy his world. He paints as if he already knew. Some years later Marie left her husband to live with Hugo Alfven. Krøyer never got over her.

His life-enhancing Hip Hip Hurrah also obtained cult status. It was in their beginning. The oil -on -canvas from 1888 depicts a cheerful garden party as a tribute to mirth, friendship, love, and artistry. Someone in the merry company proposes a toast. The painter brilliantly captured the glaze and the play of light on leaves and crystal.

But we´re not primarily here for the light, we´re here for a fisherman’s cottage not far away from the garden where Krøyer once eternalised Michael and Anna Ancher’s hilarious house-warming party in summer 1884. The simple cottage was erected a decade later or so. Over the years, it has been refurbished. Today it´s substantially larger. Still it has kept its charm and character.

Morten Wæhrens from Arkitekthuset Vodskov A/S is the architect in charge of the latest restoration and addition. Considerable antiquarian values were at stake. The renovation has obviously been carried out with absolute pitch for tradition.

The building consists of two connected bodies, transversal like a T-shape, with a beautiful bay window facing the street. The yellow colour of the façade is typical of both New Skagen by Kattegat and Old Skagen on the west coast, where the hazy late summer sunset is as Naples yellow as the houses.

The roof has red tiles with a white edging, also very typical. Once upon a time, the white stripes helped fishermen to find their way home in the dark, the story goes. It is what it appears to be, a tale. However, there seems to be a simple and practical explanation to the custom; if the strong wind caught one or two lose tiles, the rest of the roof would easily blow away. So tiles were fastened from inside with mortar. But ridge, rakes, and eaves had to be mortared from outside, hence the white edging. Today the custom is purely a question of culture and aesthetics.

In the old part of the house, the architect turned the kitchen 45 degrees, thereby linking indoor with outdoor, a luscious garden. Throughout the house, woodworks are Steneby apart from the laundry’s Lindö. Our architect, Dorthe Theilade, has selected the colours and furnished the fixed interiors to create a harmonious overall impression in the house. The scale is cool Scandinavian, our own colours Lime Grey on walls in the kitchen and Rock on woodworks, Ax in guest room, Almond in hall and laundry, Forest Green in bathrooms, and Cumulus in bedroom, occasionally matched with Pigeon Dove Grey from Farrow & Ball, delicate and discrete.

Door posts have a classic Skagen profile. The smooth wall of the kitchen was provided, on Dorthe's firm advice, with a molding that gives weight to the lower part of the room, similar to how a stone plinth on an old house gives weight to the façade. She was very determined, and it made all the difference. With an intensified glaze, the moulding brought the wall to life. Dorthe is lyric about the teamwork, both with skilful entrepreneurs and craftsmen, and last but certainly not least with delightful owners who never for a moment were tempted to compromise on quality.

Worktops are Brazilian quartzite White Macaubus with long threads winding through the stone. Bathrooms have J´adore marble, one of Dorthe’s favourites. Practically all interiors are equipped with our precious brass knob Frö. The austere neoclassic style taps also come in brass, both in kitchen and bathrooms; the solid fixture Christiansborg was designed for the reconstruction of the famous castle in Copenhagen after the disastrous fire in 1884. The armature is in regular production since 1918.

The new kitchen of the old fisherman’s cottage seamlessly joins the extension where rooms are furnished with finest Danish design on white glazed ash plank floors. In master bedroom upstairs, the floor was lowered to get more space, more air. That way, an exterior encroach was avoided, and thus, the skyline of Skagen is intact.

From the main entrance, a free passage leads right through the house and out into the lush greenery. Flooring is a handmade ceramic brick, kolumba, sand yellow sort of, actually the same oblong tiles as in the garden, but endways, another one of these smooth transitions between inside and outside.

The remarkable garden is designed by Mikkel Thorhauge, Thorhauge Anlægsgartneri in close dialogue with the owners; rooms and vaults of green foliage, pergolas and plantations of pine and platan with swathes of blue lavender, and amid the roses the fairest of them all, Alba maxima, the Skagen rose, Krøyer’s rose with white and pale pink flowers immortalised by the painter on a canvas titled Roses; Marie is seated in her deck chair in the garden of their hostess Mrs Bendsen. The adorable bush rose appears as a solitaire in the foreground. His painting is a silent prayer.

Centre stage of the site is the lower terrace, a patio of kolumba surrounded by climbing hydrangea. The garden is formal and playful with rooms for quiet socialising and conversation, even serious negotiating, but just as well for frolics and festivities. This house, and its garden full of signs and secretes, is a treasure and a treat, a place where nothing seems more natural, and appropriate, than proposing a toast. Hip, Hip, Hurrah!