The dream castle that burnt down

George Seaton, a wealthy merchant in Gothenburg, held a deep love for nature, hunting, and fishing. For years, he searched for the perfect location to build his dream hunting lodge. His search ended in 1915 at Hyltenäs kulle in Öxnevalla socken, now in Marks commune. Seaton did not only buy the hill but also the surrounding lands. There was no access road to the hill where the lodge was to be built, so the first construction was a 400-meter-long road that took around four months to complete.

The design for the lodge was created by architect Karl Severin Hansson from Göteborg, and the construction began in 1915. The building was completed in 1916, and approximately 100 to 200 workers were involved in the project. To this day, blueprints of the lodge cannot be found despite extensive searching. The size of the house is exact 41 x 47 meters. The building was two stories high. The ground floor was built of brick, and the upper floor was built of sandstone in a cross-beam style.

The roof was tiled and covered with tiles. The courtyard was 18 x 18 square meters in size. There were exactly 35 rooms in the hunting lodge. The hunting lodge was completed in early 1917 but burned down on a date in December 1923. The cause of the fire is not known, but it is believed to have started in Seaton’s wife’s wardrobe. The ruins of the hunting lodge still stand on the hill, and the remaining structures and garden are open to the public as a tourist attraction.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons