1.Intro

Welcome to Övralid, the home of the national poet Verner von Heidenstam. Here he lived for the last 15 years of his life together with Kate Bang, the last woman in his life. She was a divorced Danish lady, 24 years old with two small children, when they met and Heidenstam was 57 with the experience of three marriages. They decided they would have a modern relationship, very modern in those days, so they never married.

They lived for many years abroad before Heidenstam bought the estate in 1923 and designed the house himself. It was finished in 1925.

Heidenstam enjoyed the view from the terrace very much. There he could sit for hours under his beloved cherry tree and dream of his childhood days at Olshammar just across the lake. There he was born in 1859 and spent every summer there being raised by his mother, grandmother and two old aunts. His father, Nils Gustaf von Heidenstam, was a lieutenant colonel and engineer who constructed lighthouses and travelled a lot during summers.