Hotel Skeppsholmen – Tessin's wings on Stockholm's green island

Two 200-metre-long wings from 1699, designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, on an island in the middle of Stockholm with no through traffic. Hotel Skeppsholmen is the city's most rural address – and just one bridge from Blasieholmen.

Skeppsholmen in Stockholm is an island where you hear the birds before the traffic. You arrive across Skeppsholmsbron from Blasieholmen, past the gilded crown on the bridge railing, and suddenly the city becomes a backdrop on the other side of the water: the facades of Strandvägen, the trees of Djurgården and the rooftops of Gamla Stan. Along the island's eastern side stand two long yellow buildings with steep roofs. This is Hotel Skeppsholmen – and few hotels in Stockholm feel so removed from the city they sit right in the middle of.

01The barracks that never got their soldiers

The buildings are called Östra and Västra boställshuset and were built at the same time, between 1699 and 1702. The architect was Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, the man who designed Stockholm Palace. They were intended as barracks for His Majesty's Drabant Guard, the king's bodyguard – but the guard never moved in.

Instead, in 1716, the buildings were given to the newly formed Ships and Galleys Squadron. The eastern wing housed stores, offices and the court martial; the western wing held administrative offices, workshops and lodgings for senior officials on the island. By the mid-19th century the buildings had come to be called Långa raden, the Long Row, and it is easy to see why: together they are about 200 metres long. After 1845 the eastern building housed a mess for officials and civil servants, and in 1877 the Naval Petty Officers' Society moved in.

Since 1935 the wings have been a listed state building, managed by the National Property Board (Statens fastighetsverk). According to the hotel, they were built from the outset using materials reclaimed from buildings and ruins around Sweden – an idea the hotel is keen to highlight today, now that it holds the Nordic Swan Ecolabel.

02The hotel: Swedish design in a 17th-century shell

After conversion and renovation, Hotel Skeppsholmen opened on 26 October 2009. It is run by the Nobis group, which is also behind Nobis Hotel on Norrmalmstorg and Operakällaren. The interiors were created with the Stockholm architects Claesson Koivisto Rune, and the hotel describes its concept as Swedish throughout, in food, design, music and fashion. The hotel is a member of Design Hotels.

Insider tip

Ask for a room with a view of the sea and the garden.

The hotel has 78 rooms. Several categories have views of the sea and the garden, and the largest suite is called The Officer's Suite – a nod to the island's long history as the navy's island. Ask for a room facing the water: the view and the stillness are the reason to stay here.

03The Långa Raden restaurant and the kitchen garden

The restaurant takes its name from the Long Row and is described by the hotel as the house's living room, with Sweden's culinary heritage at the heart of lunch and dinner. The hotel has its own kitchen garden, and in December the kitchen lays out a classic Christmas smorgasbord over several sittings, created by head chef Alexander Carnolf, with salmon smoked on site and marmalades made in-house.

According to the hotel, the banqueting hall in the former mess is where royals, courtiers and naval officers have raised their glasses since the mid-1800s, and today it is hired out for weddings, dinners and parties. The hotel also has a tennis court.

04Around the island

It's the location that makes Hotel Skeppsholmen. The island has no through traffic, and a walk around it doesn't take long. Moderna Museet is a few minutes away – the hotel is a partner of the museum – as is the sculpture park outside it, and the ship af Chapman is moored at the quay facing Strömmen. Across the bridge is Blasieholmen, with Nationalmuseum and the Grand Hôtel, and from here it's quick to reach both Gamla Stan and Djurgården.

Explore the buildings and the neighbourhood in VERA PI's street guide to Långa raden, and plan your day with Metro Mode's Stockholm map. For a day on the other side of the water, see our guide A day in Gamla Stan. And on your walk around the island, point your phone at the buildings with Metro Mode Camera and it will tell you who designed them and when.

05Who it suits

Hotel Skeppsholmen suits those who want Stockholm within reach but not outside the window: museums, boats and walks instead of street life and nightclubs. It's a hotel for long breakfasts, morning walks along the water and dinner in a dining room whose walls are three hundred years old. If you want Stureplan round the corner, you're better off staying on the other side of the bridge.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.