Start at the door. Ett Hem was built in 1910 as a private house, in the Arts and Crafts manner, on Sköldungagatan in Östermalm, and it still reads as one: a solid brick front, a pitched roof, and a street that does not advertise what is inside.
The house
It opened as a hotel in 2012 with twelve bedrooms. Ilse Crawford's studio was responsible for the interiors, working for the owner, Jeanette Mix, and the brief was to keep the character of the house and add what a guest expects. The result is less a hotel with homely touches than a house with guests.
Floor-to-ceiling bookcases and original ceiling details stay. A wood-clad staircase carries brass handrails wrapped in leather. The reference is Karin Larsson, who gathered objects, textiles and furniture from across Sweden and let old and new sit together.
How it runs
The house is run on the same principle. There is a housekeeper rather than a reception. Guests have traditional keys and control their own lights, and staff answer needs, not a rulebook.
Everything points back to the kitchen. A chef will cook what a guest asks for, served in the bedroom, at the long kitchen table or in the library, and a fridge stays stocked with food and wine to help yourself. Breakfast is a communal affair at that table, with the cooking in view.
The second house
In 2022 the hotel took in a neighbouring early twentieth-century building, also fitted out by Crawford's studio. The addition brought more bedrooms, and a kitchen lounge that non-guests can use, so the house is no longer only for people who sleep there.
Who it suits
Travellers who would rather be looked after than processed, and anyone who likes to see how a good interior is made to work. The catch is the one all house-hotels share: it asks you to settle in and join the household, which is not for someone who wants to be left entirely alone.
