The Swedes curse their long dark winters, but for Johan and Anna Gorecki, a house-hunting couple in Stockholm, the season turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Winter Light
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Mattias Hamren for The Wall Street Journal
The Goreckis transformed a closed-in, 4,842-square-foot, 1930s villa in the Stockholm suburb of Djursholm into an open-plan, five-bedroom home.
In October 2008, a large 1930s Functionalist villa in the prime Stockholm suburb of Djursholm went on the market with an asking price of 16 million Swedish kronor or $2.45 million. At 4,842 square feet, the eight-bedroom, five-bathroom house was big, but its most important rooms—including the kitchen and the living room—had a closed-in feel, worsened by the low ceilings preferred in Swedish modernism. In Stockholm’s winter gloom, the house was a hard sell.
“Nobody was interested,” says Ms. Gorecki, a 37-year-old interior stylist, who creates images for advertising. “Only us.”
The couple, who have three children between the ages of 3 and 8, paid about $306,000 less than asking price—and went about remaking their new home. Work began in early 2009, and the couple moved in later that year. The family now lives in a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home, with a redesigned two-bedroom, one-bathroom guest apartment—plus new landscaping, a brighter facade and a design-rich, user-friendly interior.
Some of the structural interventions have been dramatic. The living room and an adjoining unheated conservatory have been transformed into a continuous space by cutting through a shared wall. The cramped living room now has the feel of a light-filled gallery, and the conservatory contains a heated, sunken living area with plenty of natural light.
“When we first came here, I thought the living room was boring,” says Mr. Gorecki, a 39-year-old entrepreneur. Now—outfitted with an app-controlled sound system and a Spotify hookup—it is an ideal place to listen to music.
Off the dining room, the newly purchased villa had a small kitchen along with two downstairs bedrooms and a bathroom. The Goreckis decided to convert the four smaller rooms into one big kitchen. “This is where we put in a lot of effort,” says Ms. Gorecki.
The idea came from her husband. “Johan isn’t into design,” says Ms. Gorecki, “but he has good ideas.”
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The new L-shaped kitchen has limestone floors and wall trimming to echo the vintage 1930s limestone fireplaces elsewhere in the house. Designer touches include orange fiberglass Eames chairs around the extra-long kitchen table, two Bauhaus-era Wassily lounge chairs, and a large brass light fixture by Swedish modernist designer Hans-Agne Jakobsson.
Ms. Gorecki, who designed her new home’s interiors, found the gray leather Wassily chairs at a local auction house, and the Jakobsson fixture at an antique store. The SieMatic kitchen fittings came with Miele appliances. The warming orange and brass tones contrast with the sleek cooking area, with white cabinets and counters and black light fixtures.
The rest of the downstairs is similarly eclectic. The dining room features a 1920s conference table, first designed for office use by the Stockholm department store Nordiska Kompaniet, that Ms. Gorecki bought at auction. It is complemented by a 19th-century gilded chandelier. In the living room, she has set off austere Danish Modern furniture with a playful pinkish neo-rococo dresser.
The house is an early example of Functionalism, the boxy architectural style that held sway in Sweden for much of the 20th century. But it contains a few crucial elements of an earlier neoclassical style, known as Swedish Grace, which is most commonly associated with early 20th-century Swedish glass design.
The cool geometry of the house is softened by a pillared portico in front, and by a curved staircase leading from the entryway to the upstairs bedrooms and family room.
Carpenters installed a new oak staircase in place of the earlier one covered in green carpet, but left behind a distinctive railing, wrapped in leather ribbon—now a fashionable add-on in high-end homes.
“It costs so much to make those new,” says Ms. Gorecki, “so we were happy it was already there.”
The house’s third major intervention took place around the master bedroom, which originally had a small en-suite bathroom and a nearby additional bedroom. The couple turned the bathroom into a walk-in closet and converted the bedroom into a new bathroom, lined with green Swedish marble.
After the interior was finished, the couple slowly got around to working outside. Inspired by the slate floor in the former conservatory, they replaced the villa’s surrounding gravel with matching slate paving stones. Standard suburban bushes were replaced with roses and lavender. And this summer, after much consideration, they have finally finished painting the house, which was lightened from terra cotta to salmon.
Up next: a swimming pool, set to replace an outdoor sitting area.
The couple aren’t without regrets. They installed a high-tech geothermal heating system, which uses an underground pump, but didn’t extend it to the new kitchen, equipped with new electric-powered under-floor heating. “In winter, electricity bills are terrible,” says Ms. Gorecki.
But cold weather is still the couple’s friend. The home, built on a ¾-acre lot, rests on a slope and the views down to the Baltic Sea are obscured by foliage for much of year.
“The view is nicer in autumn and winter,” says Mr. Gorecki, looking out on a sunny summer day. “There are no leaves and you can see the water.”
