At first glance this old house looks like a traditional Scandinavian summer cottage. It’s small — just 77 square meters (≈830 sq ft) — with a pale-yellow facade. Inside: wooden floors, tiled stoves, a fireplace, hand-woven rugs and vintage furniture. The unpretentious interior feels less like a year-round home and more like a cozy spot for summer getaways.
But the real charm of this Swedish cottage is something else. The house sits on a private island that’s part of the Karlshamn archipelago, near the town of the same name in southern Sweden. The archipelago includes roughly 500 little islets with varied landscapes. One of those islets belongs to the family who own the cottage.
The island covers about 18,000 square meters (1.8 hectares, roughly 4.5 acres). Or, to put it into simpler terms, that’s the size of about 2.5 standard soccer fields. It’s a lot of space for a typical summer cottage — but quite small for an island.
There’s only this single house on the island, built in 1929. The owners come here year-round — sometimes in summer to fish or swim (there’s a private dock beside the house), sometimes in winter to skate and enjoy nature while making mulled wine and firing up the grill.
The house has five rooms, including several bedrooms, a cozy living room with a stove, and a study. In the yard there’s a shed and a sauna. See our feature to get a closer look at the interior of this unusual Swedish cottage on a secluded island.
