Coast Spirit
This site describes a property with a gaming room. Please confirm you are 18 or over.
harbourmaster's house · established 1919
The rooms
Each of our four suites carries the name of a station on the old postal road that ran the length of this coast. We hold them at low occupancy through the year, the house sleeps a small number well, and prefers to.
Quiet, salt-bright, low-lit
The old south-facing signal room, now a corner suite with a limewashed timber ceiling and two deep windows onto the pier. A wool-upholstered reading bench faces the water; the pool ladder is a minute's walk down the stair.
Price on application
Sheltered, considered, wintering
A twin-aspect suite under the eaves, named for the coldest station on the old postal run. Painted floorboards, a cast-iron stove kept in for looks, and a long desk built into the gable window for weather-watching.
Price on application
Grounded, forested, unhurried
A ground-floor suite opening onto the walled garden, taken for guests who prefer the mountain-road excursion mornings, the chauffeur collects from the garden gate at first light. Birch panelling, a wide bath, wool blankets folded on a bench.
Price on application
Measured, dim, gentlemanly
The mezzanine table-games gallery above the great hall, kept small and low-lit, its four tables arranged under the old chart-room lanterns. Reserved for house guests after eight; jacket preferred, quiet voices carried by the timber vault.
Access included in the arrangement
The house
At the table
Breakfast is set out in the great hall from eight to half past ten. The kitchen takes its shape from the west bank: buckwheat and rye, poached farm eggs, cured fjord fish from the smokehouse, cloudberries kept from the summer, sheep's-milk cheeses from a farm two valleys over.
Through the day, a slow-coffee counter is kept in the map room, single-farm roasts drawn by hand. At four we hold the waffle hour by the stove, and after supper the cloudberry dessert salon opens for those who wish it. Tea service runs from three; the kitchen sets a chef's table for six on the evenings the room allows.
One further room of the house
Above the great hall, reached by the small stair off the map room, the Kartrom holds four tables under the old chart-room lanterns. It is a quiet room for house guests, opened at eight and closed at one; nothing about it hurries.
A word from the house
We keep the pool heated through winter, and the quartet plays on Thursdays when the hall allows it. If you write ahead about the mountain-road morning, the chauffeur will collect you from the garden gate at first light, a wool blanket over the knees, a flask in the door pocket.
The season ahead
18July 2026
The hall is cleared of chairs; a quartet from the coast plays a programme of Grieg and Nielsen. Rugs on the boards, doors open to the pier if the weather allows.
02August 2026
A long-table supper of cured and hot-smoked fish from the smokehouse behind the boathouse, with rye, butter and cloudberries. Sittings at seven and at half past nine.
14September 2026
A short talk in the map room over slow coffee, followed by a walk of the first mile of the old postal road inland. The concierge carries the flask.
Arrival
The house sits above the pier at Åsgårdstrand, an old harbour village half an hour south of Drammen by coast road. Trains run down the west bank from Oslo to Sande and Holmestrand; the house will collect from either station on request.
By car, the coast road turns off the E18 at the Horten exit; by boat, the small marina below the house takes visiting craft up to twelve metres in the summer months. The heated seawater pool is cut into the pier and kept warm through the year.
Write to the house
Tell us the shape of the visit, the days you have in mind, whether you would like the mountain-road morning, whether you would take supper with us. Our team responds within one business day.
Rates throughout are quoted on application. All arrangements include the fjord-larder breakfast and access to the heated seawater pool.