The return of the Gotlander

When the family's natural meeting place on Gotland was no longer there, Madeleine took hold of her own dream – to create a social nest in the Gotlandic nature. But how do you shape a house in harmony with the rugged landscape that at the same time feels welcoming?

Madeleine grew up on Gotland but no longer lives on the island. Despite that she returns often and together with her children and grandchildren she has countless summer memories from the whitewashed island.

– Being on Gotland is having the proximity of the sea but also of the rugged with pines and junipers. When my mother sold her house and moved to a small house in Visby, the family's common meeting place on the island suddenly disappeared. We all longed to get closer to the nature of Gotland again, Madeleine says.

Said and done, Madeleine bought an overgrown plot near the sea in an untouched area outside Klintehamn. Together with her children and their partners – and heavy chainsaws – they cleared a place where the house would stand. The choice of house became Sommarnöjen's Modern Sommar 80 with floor plan Hav and interior style Calm.

– We are a very house- and construction-interested family and everyone fell for how Sommarnöjen works with materials, the sleek design and how they never compromise on quality, Madeleine says.

The house is eighty square meters in size with large glass sections. The focus is on the living room but there are also three small bedrooms.

– My daughter sketched a proposal for how we wanted it, then Sommarnöjen's architect took it further. A fantastic collaboration where the architect was constantly positive about our ideas, developed them further and helped us to jointly design exactly the house we wanted, says Madeleine.

The process took longer than planned but in the end the gray wooden house was finished. Surrounded by gnarled junipers and wind-swept pines as if it "had just ended up there".

– We wanted to keep the feeling of being out in nature so we have no garden but have instead let the ground around the house grow over. I have since gone and collected seed pods from flowers in the roadside verges and thrown them out on the plot to create a natural flower meadow.

The house is winterized with a wood-burning stove and they have already had time to celebrate two Christmas Eves in the house.

– Everyone in the family loves it, Madeleine notes.