Bellmanshuset, Timber pleasure house in Djurgårdsstaden, Stockholm, Sweden
Bellmanshuset is a two-storey timber building with an attic level at Långa Gatan 4 in Djurgårdsstaden. Its facades are clad in red-painted locklist panel, and a glazed svalgång runs along the street side. The saddle roof has dormer windows and a large frontespis facing the street, and the simple plan and fixed interior fittings survive from its construction.
The wooden beams used in construction date to the period between 1754 and 1755, making this building one of the few surviving examples from the mid-eighteenth century. Government ownership began in 1991, marking a significant transition in how the structure was managed and maintained.
The name links to poet Carl Michael Bellman, whose Fredmans epistlar mention the tavern Gröna lunden, opened in 1712 by cook Nils Aronson Berg. The building itself was long thought to be that tavern, but the Swedish National Heritage Board places the tavern in Mjölnargården. Inside, 18th-century paintings with biblical motifs survive in the attic fronton room, the Bellmanrummet.
The building sits near Gröna Lund and can be viewed from the outside to appreciate its wooden details and painted surfaces. It is easiest to reach on foot while exploring the broader Djurgårdsstaden area.
The 2004 Europa Nostra Award cited the restoration's "sensitive restoration of the timber frame and the preservation of its valuable painted picture-weavings". The building had been a residence for Gröna Lund employees until the last tenant moved out in 1999, when restoration began.
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