of Lone Kühlmann

Christian X. and Queen Alexandrine moved into their new house in Skagen at Easter 1914. 

Lone Kühlmann Here is a brief history of the house:

”Was it a seaside hotel or something?” asked The Great Poet, looking absently around the magnificent dining room with Ulrik Plesner’s original furniture and Harald Slott-Møller’s market town plates designed for the house. I was about to get into my chicken fricassee. ”Tell me, do you know anything at all,” I said indignantly. ”It must have been a royal villa!”

I realized I had to tell him the story:

Klitgaarden might never have been created if it weren't for the painter Michael Ancher.

It was Ancher who, with his famous painting ”Will he be able to handle the decorations?”, first drew the royal family's attention to Skagen. The large painting was exhibited at Charlottenborg's Spring Exhibition in 1880 and caused a sensation. The Copenhagen Art Association immediately offered to buy it, but had to give way to the then National Gallery, today the Statens Museum for Kunst, which again had to withdraw when His Majesty, Chr. IX, fell in love with the painting. Chr. IX was not exactly known as an art lover, but the painting of the weather-beaten fishermen gazing out over the turbulent sea was given a permanent place in the dining room at Amalienborg, where it was admired by, among others, the king's 10-year-old grandson, the later Chr. X.

The young Christian was just as uninterested in art as his grandfather, but when he married the lovely 18-year-old Alexandrine of Mecklenburg Schwerin in 1898 at the age of 28, he wanted to make her happy, and since she was interested in art, the couple went to Skagen. 

As young royals, they could stay at Brøndums Hotel or with private friends and participate in the lively social life. For years, they were regular guests at the summer highlight among artists, Anna Ancher's birthday in August, and the parties around Grenen Badehotel, where the jet set of the time, including many royals from all over Europe, stayed.

When Christian's father, Frederik IIX, died in 1912, the ball was over. A royal couple could not live in random places, there had to be orderly relations. Queen Alexandrine had become very attached to Skagen, and the king bought a large plot of land south of the harbor that same year.

There was never any doubt that architect Ulrik Plesner would be in charge of the construction together with local craftsmen. Plesner had already made his mark on Skagen for years, and we can see from the correspondence between the client and the architect that the king already knew Plesner's houses and knew which details he wanted to have transferred to Klitgaarden, as the large, beautiful yellow house came to be called. Plesner also designed all the furniture for the house in the light Skønvirke style, which he had become acquainted with in England, where it was known as William Morris or the Arts & Crafts style.

Although the furniture is light, it is made to a high standard by Skagen's local cabinetmaker. We can be sure of that, because it is still in the house today. All around the beautiful, simple rooms, but especially in the dining room and living room, which at Klitgaarden is called the sea room. Not to be confused with the garden room. There is no garden. But there is plenty of sea.

At Easter 1914, the house was ready to receive the royal family. A large house of 700 square meters, but modest by royal standards. Not built for representation but for a relaxed family life. Easter, Whitsun and September, when the king went hunting. The house was Queen Alexandrine's personal property, and she bequeathed it to her youngest son, Prince Knud, who used it as a summer home. When his widow, Crown Princess Caroline Mathilde, died in 1995, Klitgaarden was put up for sale. There were fears that the historic house would end up as time-share apartments, but courageous people led by the then municipal director Karen Krause took action, and in 2000, after a thorough restoration, the house was able to open as a refuge for artists and researchers.

That's why The Great Poet and I and a lot of other lucky people can sit here summer and winter in the 100-year-old house in the 100-year-old furniture and eat chicken fricassee, and work, and talk to each other, and become wiser by talking to each other.

And sometimes get a little irritated talking to each other.

Beach hotel! Honestly!

Lone Kühlmann, 2014