In 1906 Britain's first envoy to the newly independent Norway, Sir Arthur Herbert, persuaded the Treasury to purchase Villa Frognæs, one of Oslo's most beautiful private houses. Since then successive British Ambassadors have been proud to occupy what is a unique legacy of Norwegian-British heritage for over a hundred years.

Villa Frognæs was built originally for the banker, Thomas Heftye, in 1857.  It has been maintained as one of Britain's 'historic residences'.  The house was extensively restored, internally and externally, in the 1980s and 1990s, in close collaboration with Norway's Department of National Heritage.  Much of the material in this page draws on the work of the then Director, Dr Stephan Tschudi-Madsen, to whose knowledge and expertise we remain in debt.

From Farm to Mansion

The land on which the British Ambassador’s Residence in Oslo now stands was originally part of Frogner Farm, one of the largest farms in the Oslo region. The land once belonged to the Cistercian monastery founded in 1147 by English monks on Hovedøya in the Oslo Fjord. Frogner Farm became crown land with the Reformation in 1537 but was soon sold and over the next 300 years passed through the hands of various wealthy families.

The advent of Romanticism, with its love of Nature and idealisation of country life, attracted people to the fjords and mountains for very different reasons than before. Christiania’s inhabitants now wanted houses out of town by idyllic beaches and with spectacular views. So from about 1800 the many smallholdings around the city, including those, which were part of the Frogner Farm, were transformed from farms to countryseats for recreation and enjoyment of Nature.

So it was with the Residence property, one of the finest parts of the Frogner farm,of the Frogner farm, lying on a rise between two streams (Skillebekk and Terningbekk) at Skarpsno. It had all the features so prized by the Romantics.

Villa Frognæs is built

Thomas J. Heftye bought the central and largest part in 1852 and added to it some adjoining land (also once part of the Frogner Estate). Villa Frognæs, as he called it , was built between 1856 and 1859 (the completion date is still to be seen in the moulding above the door leading from the terrace to the Oval Room). The architect was H.E. Schirmer. Even today the building occupies a prominent position among the grand houses on the capital’s west side, just as it stands out in the history of Norwegian architecture as marking the transition between late neo-classicism and Gothic Revival.

Family Heftye

Thomas Heftye (1822-1886)was a banker, the third generation of a Swiss immigrant family who played a prominent part in Norwegian business life during the 19th Century. Heftye was known for his hospitality and entertained distinguished foreign visitors as well as Norwegian celebrities.

Heftye’s grandfather came from Switzerland to settle in Norway. In 1791 he became a citizen of Christiania and founded the banking firm of Thos. Joh. Heftye & Son. The bank passed first to his son and thence to his grandson, Thomas Johannessen Heftye. In 1857, Thomas married Marie Jacobine Meyer (1826-1895), the sister of one of the city’s largest property owners and financiers. The two brothers-in-law got on well together and Thomas built up the bank into one of the country’s biggest financial institutions. Like his father and grandfather, he was appointed Swiss Consul. Thomas and Marie Jacobine had four daughters and one son who all grew up at Villa Frognæs. The son, Thomas Heftye (1860-1921), became Defence Minister in the Blehr Government in 1903.

The Architecture of Villa Frognæs

Little is known of Thomas Heftye’s views about architecture or about his relationship with the architect. He is supposed to have said: ‘This place must not excel by being unconventional’. There was no danger of that, for the German-educated Heinrich Ernst Schirmer (1814-1887) belonged to the restrained and rational tendency of the time. He had been an assistant neo-classicist architect but was also well versed in Gothic architecture. When he came into contact with Thomas Heftye he had just finished work on Gaustad Hospital and the Central Railway Station in Christiania, which both have Gothic Revival features, as have the twenty or so churches he has designed. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the main lines of the exterior of the house he designed for Heftye are in the late neo-gothic, which is prominent in the plaster mouldings, the brass door furniture and the stair rail.

The main entrance to the house is from the east. The porch was originally an open porte-chochere. There was once a splendid fountain in the forecourt, the base of which can still be seen in the rose garden.

Through the entrance is a spacious hall and from here an elegant neo-gothic staircase leads to a landing on the first floor. The ballroom, the dining room and the drawing room, all give on to the heart of the house, the Oval Room. This gives access to the gardens and forms the Romantic link between the gardens and the house, between Nature and Home.

The Conservatory

Heftye had acquired some 20 acres when he purchased the land upon which Villa Frognæs was built. He laid out the land as a park. By the Drammen Road there was a lake with swans and a Nordland boat. A conservatory lay west of the main house.

The conservatory had a special place in the park. Built in a neo-classical style, its central feature was an arched colonnade behind which there was a billard room with a moulded ceiling and a marble fireplace. The wings on either side were greenhouses. In 1988, the greenhouses were replaced by a solid construction and the billard room now forms the main reception room for a family house for Embassy staff.

 

 

 

 

The Oval Room

The Oval Room has large south-facing windows made for summer and light. The inner part opposite them is dominated by two great Swedish stoves. The entire wall space above the dado is painted (oil and plaster) with Norwegian landscapes by Johan Fredrik Eckersberg (1822-1879). The lower part of the walls was originally painted to give the illusion of a wooden balustrade around the room. In 2001, the Embassy commissioned the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) to clean and conserve the paintings.

 

 

Outbuildings

A Swiss-style wood-board Coach House to the east of the Residence that incorporated stables and a hayloft was built at the same time as the main house.  It still has a little bell tower at the gable end which bears the initial “H” (for Heftye).  In 1948 the coach house was converted to staff quarters.  There was once another outhouse nearby but this was pulled down in 1963 to make way for the new office building.

Next to the residence the Gate House by the Drammen Road was built in 1891 and was one of the first prefabricated houses in the Swiss style to be erected in Oslo.  It too is now staff quarters.

The Uncertain Years

After Thomas Heftye’s death his widow remained at Villa Frognæs until 1889 when she sold it to Consul-General Egidius of the Netherlands. He sold the building sites along Thomas Heftyes Gate and Frederik Stangs Gate. In 1891 the remaining property was bought by Thomas Fearnley, founder of the shipping firm Fearnley and Eger, Master of the Royal Hunt and son of the landscape painter. In 1898 he sold it to a consortium which had abortive plans to turn it into an entertainment park. For a while it was occupied by the German Consul-General, but mostly it lay empty, having been repurchased by Thomas Fearnley in 1901.

The Purchase of the British Legation 

The British Embassy in Oslo was established soon after Norway gained independence in 1905.  The Danish Prince Carl became King of Norway after the Norwegian people opted for monarchy in a referendum. Prince Carl, who was married to Princess Maud, daughter of the Britain’s King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, took the name Haakon VII.  Together with Queen Maud and Crown Prince Olav he came ashore to a snow sprinkled Christiania on 25 November 1905.

Around this time, an emissary of the Norwegian Government, Fredrik Wedel Jarlsberg (1855-1922), had, according to his own account, suggested during an audience with King Edward VII that Great Britain should acquire the magnificent property of Frognæs in one of the best parts of the capital as an appropriate seat for the British “Legation”, as the Embassy was called at that time.

On 27 October 1905 Sir Arthur Herbert was appointed British Minister to Norway.  He was at his post before King Haakon and Queen Maud arrived, but with nowhere to live.  He also came in contact with the Norwegian envoy, Wedel Jarlsberg who again suggested “Villa Frognæs” as a suitable choice for the legation.  Herbert contacted the British Foreign Office about the house.  Its price was £20,000, which was high, but he described the house as “in good repair” and with a “good piece of land attached”.  He warned the Foreign Office “the price of houses here is, compared with English ideas, enormous”.  The Treasury flatly opposed to purchase and argued for rented property.  On 13 December Herbert wrote again.  “Fearnley’s house stands very well and has a fine view”.  But he also mentioned that it needed hot water heating, electric light, new drains and more rooms for servants.  To strengthen his case for purchase, he referred to the royal connection and the probability that royal visitors would need to stay at the Residence.  He also hinted that when the German Minister came he would be likely to cast an eye on the property “the more so as the German Consul at one time had his Residence there”.

Eventually the Treasury relented, and on 1 February 1906 Sir Arthur Herbert could at last triumphantly report that he had secured the property for £18,000.  “On both sides there were expressions of good will between Britain and Norway”.  For both sides, and not least for Sir Arthur Herbert, it was important that Great Britain was first to establish diplomatic representation in the capital of the newly independent nation with a prestigious building for the Legation.

Norwegian Independence brought on an immediate need to establish a British Legation and the wish to act fast was no doubt reinforced by King Edward VII’s active support for his son-in-law Prince Carl as prospective King of Norway. However reports on direct Royal intervention to secure this particular property are perhaps overstated.

Once the purchase had been made the Office of Works determined that everything should be done to a high standard dispatched pieces of Edwardian and French furniture, the gardens were replanted and the great lawns restored. A silvery grey wallpaper was planned for the then dining room and painted flowers on a white background for the ballroom. There was space on the ground floor for the Chancery, at that time staffed only by one diplomat and a local clerk/translator and Sir Arthur ensured that he could live comfortably on the two floors above.  The house underwent a gradual modernisation.  Electricity was installed together with central heating. Some of the original radiators are still in use today.  The gardens were re-established and a tennis court was laid.  The architect, Kristian H. Biong, was appointed to manage the restoration under the supervision of the Minister himself.

The War Years: 1940-1945

When the Germans occupied Oslo on 9 April 1940, the British Legation was so frantic in burning its secret papers in the garden that the Fire Brigade were called out! The house was then locked up and the keys handed to the Swiss Legation as the protecting power. The occupation forces respected this neutrality. When the British recovered the keys in 1945, they found the house untouched with a copy of Aftenposten from 9 April 1940 still lying on the table.

The Post War Embassy and Refurbishment

After the Second World War the Legation was raised to have the status of an Embassy. For a while the Chancery (Political Section of the Embassy) continued in the house, but later needed offices in the city centre. However, in 1966 a modern Chancery bordering Thomas Heftyes Gate was completed. This was sited along Thomas Heftyes gate and built long and low to comply with the height restrictions imposed on all new building in the area.  The project was the responsibility of the British Ministry of Building and Works who employed Reidar Sveass as architect.  The building, clad in local Flisa-granite, was finished in 1966.  To quote one diplomatic description, it is: “a concrete and glass building ……. which can best be described as functional”.  This building houses all sections at the Embassy today. It is not beautiful and it involved the loss of one cottage, but it does not impinge on the main features of the house and grounds.

Straight after the end of World War II the new Ambassador also decided to improve and develop the upper part of the garden around the house.  A landscape architect, Eyvind Strøm, took on the task with enthusiasm.  The idea was to create a more formal garden on the west side to make a better transition between the house and the residual parkland.  The old bushes in front of the house were removed, as were the winding paths up to the greenhouses.  He used Oppdal stone to pave a rose garden to the north bounded by a kind of dry-stone wall, and above this he erected a rose covered pergola of concrete.  The work was completed in 1946.  With hindsight one might say that the result was a somewhat bald treatment of the English garden.

  

 

 

Since WWI, Royal visitors and others have planted trees.  In the residence garden the “RoyalForest” includes trees planted by Queen Elizabeth, King Haakon, King Olav and Princess Diana. The photo on the left depicts HRH Queen Elizabeth II meeting King Haakon V of Norway during the Royal visit of 1955.

 

 

 

Since 1945 a great number of Norwegian and British Ministers and officials, military and oilmen, ship-owners and trade unionists, press correspondents, academics, musicians and many others have been guests in the Residence. The house has seen trade promotions, charity events and children’s parties.

At the beginning of the 1980s the British Government decided to restore and modernise several of their historic Residences.  In Oslo the work as supervised by the architectural historian and interior designer, John Cornforth, who worked in close consultation with the Norwegian Director of National Heritage.  His objective – apart from modernising practical things like the electrical circuits and the kitchens – was to bring back to the house something of the Edwardian elegance it had enjoyed at the beginning of the 1900s, while enhancing the Norwegian atmosphere of the Oval Room.  The plans were drawn up in 1985 and the work was carried out over the next three years.  Cornforth was responsible for the elegant draped curtains, the period wallpapers and the carpets in carefully matched combinations of gold, white and light grey.  New paintings were acquired from the British Government Art Collection.

A further  in-depth refurbishment was commissioned in 1991 working together with the Norwegian Riksantikvaren. Most recently the building has been given a completely new copper roof, which is guaranteed to last for at least the next 100 years.