The Story of a Summer House
I didn’t grow up with a summer house. I have no fond childhood memories of a black-and-white wooden house out in the Danish countryside, no grandparents who could offer a retreat by the sea on those hot summer days. But my husband did. And his fondest childhood memories were made in the rolling countryside around Lumsås in West Zealand. Trips to the beach, sitting on the patio playing cards, ice cream galore, and drives into Nykøbing.
Would you rather hear Cathrine Wichmand tell the story? Listen to Episode 5 of Landfolk’s podcast “Sommerhusliv” here.
The fact that his parents sold the summer house back then still brings him sadness, even decades later. After all, a summer house isn’t just four walls and a cardboard roof. A summer house is nothing but good memories. It’s where we come together. Where we don’t argue over smelly socks or dinner. This is where life is lived. Without strings attached or chores. The grass is a little greener, life a little sweeter, the sun always shines—and if it rains, we just call it “hygge.”
In 2019, we bought our first summer house, and I’m deliberately writing “first,” since it certainly won’t be the last. We’ve promised each other that—and we mean it wholeheartedly. And already, I’ve revealed that we no longer have it.
We’d been talking about a summer house for a long time and had visited several, but for a young couple, it seemed completely unbelievable that we could possibly afford both an apartment and a summer house. The idea kept coming and going, but on a mountainside in Italy overlooking Largo D’Orta during our maternity leave, we saw a house that made it impossible for us to let go of the idea. We came home from vacation on Friday, and by Sunday we were in Rågeleje. As soon as we turned onto the road, I started checking off boxes. Gravel road. Check. Old neighborhood. Check. Close to the water. Check. Black and white. Check. Latticed windows. Check. Check, check, check. The real estate agent has since said that she’ll never forget the look on my face when we opened the gate. She saw the love happen—and it was genuine and heartfelt. Even on a rainy day, the dream was coming true, and the very next day we made an offer. And we got it.
My Favorite Summer Houses :listings[short_ids="914df2fe, 13ce5115"] I remember so vividly the pure sense of happiness that washed over us whenever we were there. We were better partners, better friends, better people when we retreated to Rågeleje, far from the big city. It was the perfect yin to our yang existence in the city. And when, barely two years and a pandemic later, we had to face the fact that we needed a bigger and more family-friendly home with our second child on the way, we had to sell the summer house. And it wasn’t without a thousand twists and turns first, just to see if we could make it all work out. It was the hardest adult decision, made purely out of reason, with our desire so deeply suppressed—swept all the way under the rug.
It’s only our first summer house, and once we’re past the toddler years and have some breathing room, we dream of having a sanctuary somewhere again. To own a little patch of green land, a natural plot with tall trees and the scent of the forest. A log cabin, perhaps, not too far from the water. It must be out there somewhere.
The Proletariat Meets the Bourgeoisie
The Danish summer house is a unique phenomenon, just as the life that goes with it is. It emerged in part from the allotment garden movement and the large country villas of the upper middle class north of Copenhagen—houses that today are worth millions.
The proletariat meets the bourgeoisie. Here, the social classes could meet and mingle, and everyone was welcome to enjoy the grass among the trees and a blue sky. And from the very first summer cottage lots subdivided in Hornbæk in the late 1800s to today—when there are a good 200,000 summer cottages scattered across the country—that’s still what you find: the mix. There are those who live in public housing apartments near the beaches and enjoy a quiet life in the summer countryside, and those who have essentially built their entire lives around both their year-round home and their summer house with a double carport. But when you run into each other at the local ice cream stand on the beach, there’s no difference—where else can you meet on such equal terms these days? You can count them on one hand.
The first summer homes were simple. Uninsulated. Barely had a bathroom. People didn’t go there for refined luxury, but rather to get closer to nature, experience the changing seasons—an exquisite chance to “get out of town,” as Landfolk also notes—and feel the cycle of nature.
From Tiny Living to Mega Living
Many summer homes, as we know them today, were built in the post-war era of the 1960s and 1970s, when the economy was booming. We wanted to move to the countryside, have a flagpole and a garden, and laugh with our neighbors over the hedge. They were still simple: two rooms—one with a bunk bed for the kids, an adult bedroom where you could barely walk around the double bed. A combined kitchen, living room, and family room—the first version of modern-day “tiny living.” What else do you really need? There’s nothing you can’t manage in 50 square meters for a family of four. It’s actually incredible. But the doors to the garden were always open anyway, and the outdoors became just as cool as the indoors.
But as the decades passed, more and more large summer homes appeared in the 1980s. The ones with a hot tub, a grown-up area, and a kids’ area. A carport. Homes that were just as established as year-round residences. Two of each. We were supposed to want for nothing, and we were supposed to be entertained. And that trend hasn’t slowed down, as we see the news filled with stories about “mega” summer homes on the Danish coasts, fully equipped with spa areas, movie theaters, and enough bedrooms for a summer camp. Whether this is entirely true to the spirit of the tradition, I won’t comment on. But there was apparently once a Frederick IV who gave his wife, Queen Louise, a small country estate—Hirschholm Castle—which she could use as a summer home, as a little break from city life in the market town. The mega-summer home was born.
Today, you no longer need to own a summer house to enjoy one. We can rent, swap, or borrow—and in this way, regardless of budget or price per square meter, everyone can get a taste of the happiness hidden behind the wooden siding. We can play at being kings and barons, or scale things way down and sleep in a shelter on a summer house lot. There’s room for all of us in the summer house, and there’s something just right for everyone. A place that can hold all the dreams, ideas, vacation memories, good conversations, and thoughts that live inside us but just need the right setting. They’re right there, in the Danish countryside.
Written by Camilla Swartz Primdahl
June 2022
