Ett Hem
...more than just beautiful elegant city retreat
If you know me at all, you’ll know that I love hotels - since I was a little half human I have been in and out of them non-stop. For giggles we recently counted them and it’s over 2000 hotels at this point…in fact I just wrote in Wallpaper magazine about the Mercer and their delicious analog world…
But over to Stockholm…Skål!
Ett Hem, meaning “At Home” in Swedish, is as the name suggests a home that happens to also be a small, exquisite intimate hotel in Sweden. But the word home is what prevails here – personable, comfortable and a totally new understanding of what luxury truly is. The home is designed to be an appreciation of all that is good, wondrous and truly beautiful without any of the restrictions that can come with stars and titles very often. Here, simplicity and authenticity reigns and life is appraised by looking at true value. Imagine.
I say home or house, but it’s really three private buildings combined into one incredible experience…
Here, luxury is expressed through true hand selection, absolute personalization and a sense that ostentation and bling have completely disappeared. Possibly, and hopefully, forever. Glamorous in the most sophisticated sense of the word and generously casual the way the zeitgeist intended is what defines the house. The validity of the old world meeting the desire for quality, craftsmanship and freedom (and high tech) is what slowly knits this home together. That and also the fact that the owner, Jeanette Mix innately warms the twentieth century buildings from deep within.
Originally these Stockholm homes belonged to a government official and his wife, a woman who collected textiles, furniture and objects from all over Sweden. Today as it stands the house is under the careful, creative genius and considered care of Jeanette who has, along with the creative direction from Ilse Crawford’s Studioilse made home. Studioilse, based in London and known for their discretion and, of course discerning taste, is said to have a “human centric and integrated approach” and it is clear that the studio (along with both Ilse and Jeanette’s sense of aesthetic and style) is what drove purpose and virility into the entire space.
Architect Fredrik Dahlberg designed the space, dating back to 1910, and the “masculine” side comes through in the outside brick as it towers upwards slightly and chivalrous dark timber lined rooms inside. As Jeanette will say the “feminine” comes in the sleeping and family spaces with “Carl Larsson’s super Scandinavian interiors.” Ett Hem is a sort of “container for beautiful things” and as you mill around the house finding the beauty is so natural and easy – from the personal art collection, to magazines hand picked by Jeanette from the newsstand, to touching the leather railings on the stair case and then sitting in the light wood sauna on a small Japanese inspired stool washing your feet.
Furniture, objects and the most remarkable and extraordinary things are seemingly scattered around, but in fact they are placed with care and attentiveness indicative of a surgeon or model ship maker. The stories they tell, the adventures they’ve been on and the comfort they bring is what makes this home so dear. The house is also filled with fresh flowers from the garden, home made treats from the guest chefs all laughing and cooking in enjoyment downstairs and then - naturally - the smells of candles and long dinner conversation lingers everywhere. “I have made sure my staff can devote extra time to all guests, more than what’s normally required and expected,” shares Jeanette. For instance, they don’t have a back of house - it’s all part of the experience.
The beds are more than just comfortable as they feel like nests in the finest linen and gleaming bathrooms have full sized Kiehl’s products waiting to be used. Even the wrappers of the soap have been carefully taken off, as to not have guests fussing over anything. Materials like cane, wood, leather and velvet flow through the open-handed bedrooms and then the brass cocktail cabinet provides a welcoming carouse. The devil, as always, are in these details – and here they create a heaven in the diplomatic suburb of Stockholm.
The original purchased home (she added two more after), on many levels, has only 13 rooms, where the suite and one duplex suite are no doubt the finest. But in a home of this caliber, everything is finer than you can imagine. The common spaces, including a leisurely lounge with enormous fireplace and sofas to sink into, are where guests can come play Scrabble, read or help himself to a scotch. Outside is a glass conservatory type space where guests can eat little tarts and treats, drink coffee, play games or laze around in fine fabrics and wools. Gathered around are stacks of books (ones you actually want to read) to give this glass vat a sense of purpose. As Jeanette says “Ett Hem started with a unique opportunity to realise a dream, to create the kind of hotel I am always looking for myself when I travel.”
You can quietly join the daily pasta making in the kitchen if you so wanted to, put your hands in the cookie jars, take a bike ride with whomever is around…or start a puzzle for anyone to join in on.
Here, guests are “treated as friends of the family” and become part of the experience opposed to just consumers of it. Luxury can be smelt, felt, touched and inhaled all through the walls, the rugs and the maternal kitchen downstairs. Nothing is left unstirred as the atmosphere raises a glass to the finest things in life: space, time and freedom. Like when you arrive (there is no check in desk, you sort of peek over the fence, ring the bell and just say hello and make yourself at home) you receive Jeanette’s pocket-size guide to the neighborhood.
“Guests are treated like special friends and can help themselves to goodies in the fridge, open a bottle of wine, take the dog out for a walk and even borrow the car” is what Jeanette would say. Luxury, unbounded.
