After watching Trädälskaren, director Jonas Selberg Augustsén’s philosophical 2008 documentary about a peaceful treehouse high up in a Swedish forest, Kent Lindvall and Britta Jonsson-Lindvall couldn’t get an idea out of their heads. Since 2004, Jonsson-Lindvall had been running a small guesthouse and restaurant in Harads, a village in Swedish Lapland close to the Arctic Circle. “But, very few people had found it,” explains Lindvall. “It was tough and we knew we must do something to attract more.”
That’s when the enterprising couple asked the filmmaker, a friend of theirs, if they could rent out the simple treehouse as an experiment. It was a hit with Swedes, but Lindvall and Jonsson-Lindvall yearned to do something bigger, and on land closer to the guesthouse. Around this time, Lindvall was leading a fishing tour in Russia and serendipitously, three of Sweden’s top architects were in attendance. It wasn’t long before plans were mapped out for Treehotel, a collection of year-round, one-of-a-kind treehouses, including Tham & Videgård’s Mirrorcube, with a façade of glass morphing into plywood inside, and the fantastical flying saucer-shaped UFO by Bertil Harström of Inredningsgruppen. Opened in 2010, Treehotel has now grown to seven different units, with an eighth in the works, that are all designed by Scandinavian architects.
The 7th Room at Treehotel, designed by Snøhetta, is built like a traditional Nordic cabin
Lindvall and Jonsson-Lindvall knew little about the hotel business—he was a vocational guidance counselor and she was a nurse—but those previous professions certainly developed in them an innate sense of hospitality. As Lindvall points out, “We are used to taking care of people.” Just as importantly, they are stewards of the land, natives of the region who love their home village and want to honor it. “When we started Treehotel, sustainability was one of the most important things for us. I’ve been in nature all my life. That’s my style. We wanted to protect it,” Lindvall explains.
It was the during the opening of Treehotel, when a group of people were gathered around a table, that Harads resident Per-Anders Eriksson casually suggested the idea of a floating sauna on the river. A year later, Harström returned with a design plan and a small group of local owners, including Lindvall and Jonsson-Lindvall, banded together to unveil Arctic Bath in early 2020, a hotel and spa, says Lindvall, that is “built on local traditions.”
The centerpiece circular spa at Arctic Bath features an open-air cold bath
Like Treehotel, which is just a few minutes away, Arctic Bath is an eco-conscious property amid a contemplative setting, crafted from materials like pine and limestone, and filled with furniture and lighting from Swedish designers. Harström joined forces with designer Johan Kauppi to bring the standout circular spa, which floats on the Lule River, to life. Resembling rapids-jammed logs, it calls to mind the Lule’s bygone timber days. Harström and Kauppi also designed the six minimalist on-the-water cabins while designer AnnKathrin Lundqvist handled the six glazed land cabins, which flaunt chic additions like spiral staircases.
“A lot of people started to combine visits to Treehotel and Arctic Bath,” says Lindvall, who is happy that the world is taking notice of Harads’ environmentally responsible design imprint. “We like to do it this way. We must. There’s no other way to go.”
Half of the accommodations and the spa at Arctic Bath float on the Lule River
Photos by Johan Jansson and courtesy of Arctic Bath
This article originally appeared in HD’s November 2020 issue.
