Villa Akleja, Historical wooden villa in Vaxholm, Sweden.
Villa Akleja is a listed wooden building complex in Vaxholm Municipality, Sweden. The main house is two stories tall and features a studio with a glass roof and north-facing windows, while two separate guest houses stand on the same grounds.
The villa was built in the 1870s and was originally the home of Zacharias Topelius, a Finnish-Swedish author. In 1901 it passed to artist J.A.G. Acke and his wife Eja, who carried out a major renovation of the property.
The villa carries a decorative frieze by sculptor Christian Eriksson showing a dancing faun, echoing a similar work on the facade of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. This detail ties the building visually to Swedish public art and signals the artistic world its owners moved in.
The property sits in Vaxholm Municipality, which is accessible from Stockholm by ferry or bus. The site covers several buildings and outdoor areas, so allow enough time to move between them at a relaxed pace.
During the 1901 renovation, rooms were connected through sliding doors and an arched passageway, which was an unusual choice for Scandinavian home design at the time. The dining room links directly to the studio in a way that would have been rare in the region then.
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