One would expect lavish gardens to surround the stone castle-turned-hotel called Häringe Slott near Stockholm. One would not be disappointed:
To see the interiors, go to An Enchanted Castle in Sweden.
Photographs via Ingalls Photography.
Above: Located on the edge of a nature preserve a half hour's drive from Stockholm, the sprawling Häringe estate's gardens date to the early 1930s, when a succession of wealthy and eccentric industrialists-turned-collectors who owned the property each put his idiosyncratic mark on it.
Above: Banker Torsten Kreuger built the gardens in the early 1930s.
Above: After Kreuger went bankrupt in the 1930s, vacuum cleaner magnate Axel Wenner-Gren, who owned Electrolux, bought Häringe Slott.
Above: Wildflowers and fruit.
Above: An inveterate collector, Wenner-Gren entertained celebrity acquaintances such as Greta Garbo and Josephine Baker at his palace.
Above: Disconsolate at his inability to broker diplomatic relations between Germany and England that would have prevented World War II, Wenner-Gren and his wife left Sweden on their yacht and and did not return to Häringe Slott until after the war ended.
Above: After Wenner-Gren's death in 1961, the castle's furnishings were sold off; subsequent owner Olle Hartwig painstakingly reacquired the collection.
Above: The Häringe-Hammersta Nature Reserve has farmlands and pastures.
Above: The landscape is varied, including coastal bays.
Above: Twilight at the end of the dock.
Above: Wenner-Gren and his wife, Marguerite, are buried near the castle's East Wing.
(N.B.: This is an update of a post that ran on July 6, 2012.)