Hotel Hellsten, Stockholm

Hotel Hellsten is located in a building dating from 1898. The hotel designer and founder, has kept the old style of typical bourgeois family flats, with some rooms having kakelugnar, a Swedish style of tile or porcelain chimneys, and stuccatio and wooden panels. The rooms are all individually designed to reflect their natural advantages, which means a stay at the Hellsten is both a pleasure and an aesthetic experience. \\\The founder\\\'s Great Great Grandfather, Carl Fredrik Hellsten had, in addition to his job as a mining expert, an inn in Ljusnarsberg in the Swedish county of Bergslagen. He had inherited this inn from his father. In 1871, some time after the great famine in Sweden, he decided to get rid of this enterprise. He wanted to move to Stockholm for a safer existence and so that his sons could get an education. His first thought was to start a small hotel business but reality did not want this. Instead he found himself working hard as a clerk to feed his family. They lived in the parish of Adolf Fredrik in Stockholm. They had their residence at Kammakargatan, two blocks away from the hotel. Carl Fredrik\\\'s son Johan, who became a publisher of architectural books, had his shop at Drottninggatan and his home at Luntmakargatan, the street where the Hotel Hellsten is today located. In 2004, 130 years later, Hotel Hellsten opens its doors to continue a family tradition."