Come for the treehouse, stay for the coffee, at Norway’s most eccentric hotel
Between when I make the booking and when we arrive, Juvet Landscape Hotel has become famous, courtesy of Succession. But we’re not here to retrace the steps of the Roys - we’ve come for the treehouse.
About two hours’ drive beyond the nearest town of note, we arrive at Norway’s Juvet Landscape Hotel.
“What are you doing here?” says the hostess at the check-in desk, having come from the kitchen, or the garden, or somewhere else, after we’ve idled at the front door for half an hour or so. “This is not the check-in time.” Apparently Norwegians are warm and fun once you get to know them. “You cannot come now,” she continues. “Go to the cafe. Come back at 3 o’clock.”
It is impossible to overstate how remote this location is. On the drive from the sparkling Art Nouveau town of Alesund (which we flew to from Bergen, 420km to the south) we passed fjords, still and deep, the rugged peaks of the Sunnmøre Alps, innumerable untamed pine and birch forests, isolated hamlets, grass-roofed cabins and fields of lush green pasture that must be coated in impenetrable snow come winter.
On the way we’d noticed one cafe, in a cottage by the road with a sign advertising forest berries. And we’d stopped there, in fact, but left again immediately after finding it occupied by a coachload of English tourists eating roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
“What cafe?” we ask the hotel receptionist.
“Walk over the hill and you’ll find the cafe.”
Our uncertainty is met with glacial indifference. “See you later,” she says.
As it is midday and we have three hours to kill, we do as instructed, leaving the car and walking up a gentle hill in the direction of the alleged cafe. We cross a road, find a path through a field and navigate along a stream that becomes a rushing river, then a roaring waterfall. Well this is unexpected. Continuing along, a sculptural iron bridge appears, which we cross, leading to views of the waterfall as it smashes down in a raging cascade. And here is the cafe. The cafe at the end of the world, it seems. And it is open.
“Hello!” says the barista in his singsong Sven accent as we stumble inside this modern architectural masterpiece that’s suspended beside the Gudbrandsjuvet waterfall (as we later learn it is called). “Coffee?”
Ah that would be yes, please. So we pull up seats at a table beside huge windows that look onto this incredible natural wonderland and congratulate ourselves that we have found the world’s most remote cafe, and it is amazing.
We have come to this faraway place not for the coffee, of course, but for the hotel. It’s unfortunate that between when I make the booking and when we arrive, Juvet Landscape Hotel has become famous, courtesy of Succession, in which it is thinly disguised as a Finnish ice resort. But we are not here for its celebrity. Rather we are here because at Juvet you can sleep in a treehouse.
Treehouse hotels are a thing in Scandinavia. In the minds and spirits of those hardy northerners, the forest has an almost god-like status, with the mysticism surrounding “forest bathing” sown deeply into cold hearts. Airbnb has a whole category dedicated to “treehouse accommodation”, with options ranging from Treehotel in Sweden to the Arctic Treehouse Hotel in Finland. The idea is to sleep elevated in the forest in a box made of pinewood, thus having a deep commune with nature. At Juvet there are three types of accommodation: two treehouses, seven “unique and minimalistic landscape rooms”, and “Skrivarstua”, a writer’s lodge for four. The facility is not new, actually, having been built in two parts, from 2007-2010 and then from 2012-2013 by Scandi architects Jensen & Skodvin, after “extensive negotiations with conservation authorities”.
Each room or “house” is scattered around the property with at least one wall built entirely of glass to maximise views.
Our treehouse (called Birdhouse here) is a pine-scented structure so rustic we receive a splinter or two from the walls. Split over two levels, the space comprises a minuscule lounge room of sorts, and, up a ladder, a loft bed. There’s also a little bathroom – a loose interpretation of the word.
It’s gorgeous to look at, architecturally impressive and small enough to encourage spending time enjoying the rest of the property, where the century-old restored barnhouse forms a communal area in which guests linger and do nothing much other than exist in the environment. And what an environment, this otherworldly paradise wedged between snowcapped peaks and a rushing, ice-coloured tributary of Valldøla River.
There’s a bathhouse, of course, with a lofty aspect over this untamed wilderness, and no man-made ice bath is necessary. Rather, scupper down from the sauna to the icy river and dive in for a frozen shock, before returning to the warmth of the sauna. It’s a blood rush.
Dinner is in the barn, transformed at night into a place for a fantastical communal dinner party – complete with twinkling candles and fragrant forest flowers – where guests chat over a three-course dinner offering modern interpretations of Norwegian food (berries, herbs, seafood, mostly). We set out thinking the communal dining experience will be a chore, but it turns out we’re seated with an American circus performer and her screenwriter girlfriend, so the evening is better than expected. At night, we try to stay up to see the sky turn dark, but the fresh air defeats us. By 11pm, in a translucent twilight, we fall asleep with the forest whispering around us.
I have come here to bring my children deep into a magical wilderness, a place virtually untouched by the real world, and they are thrilled by a whimsical experience they will remember forever. But their thrill is nothing compared to mine when we return to the Gudbrandsjuvet Cafe the following day and find it is still here, the scent of coffee in the air. I thought for a moment I had imagined it.
Check in: Juvet Landscape Hotel is 100km east of Alesund in central Norway. You will need to hire a car to get there. Rates from NOK4400 ($620). juvet.com
Eat: The Gudbrandsjuvet Cafe was also designed by Jensen & Skodvin, who designed the hotel. According to the designers, “The geometric flexibility of the concept resembles a bicycle chain and makes it possible to give almost all these small rooms, contained in each element, the qualities of a corner space, usually the most sought after space in a café with a view.” The cafe offers great casual food, from pumpkin soup and pasta to traditional Scandinavian pastries, local berries, ice creams and Australian-style coffee.