Strandgaarden Visit pt 1

On the second day of our European trip, it was time to embark on our side-trip to the Danish countryside – the reason we went on this whole adventure in the first place.  We were invited by Jens Quistgaard’s daughter, Henriette Quistgaard, to visit the Quistgaards’ farm by the sea, where JHQ lived in the later part of his live, and where Henriette lives now.  She was very appreciative of the work I did on the Danish Pepper book, and with a good recommendation from Stig Guldberg – creator of the JHQ documentary “A Saucepan for my Wife” – I got the invitation.  Stig came down for the visit as well.

It was a little rainy and chilly that day, and we caught a train down South. Here I am on the train, dealing with jet lag and excited for the time ahead. The house is near the town of Vordingborg, where we were met by Henriette and Stig. It was great meeting her for the first time and instantly they made us feel at home.  We were whisked off in the car for a beautiful drive to the seaside.  The countryside was beautiful. It reminded me a bit of Wisconsin’s rolling hills. Except, the homes were all hundreds of years old and we were driving along Danish fjords.

We pulled up to Strandgaarden and I immediately noticed the sign was in the Dansk typeface JHQ created.  It was so exciting to be there. I could feel the salt in the air and I felt like I was in a truly historic place.

Look at that collectors – you are excited to get a bowl signed IHQ – how about a whole house?  His family has owned homes in the area for years and years – he lived just down the hill as a child.  This house, which is really 4 buildings grouped in a square with a courtyard in the middle, was an old farmhouse that was totally rebuilt by Quistgaard.  The history of where JHQ lived, including a stint in Rome, is long and hard to remember, but this was his true home. He loved it here, by the sea. When he wasn’t in Copenhagen, he worked here, and this is where his stuff is. It was really exciting to see his handiwork in every bit of the house, from the shutters to the door handles. Even the beds in the guest bedroom were designed by him.

From the courtyard, you enter the house into a small entry hall.  In front of you is the kitchen, and to the right is the living room (pictured above). What a house of treasures this is! Filled with his own works, antiques of all ages, mounted deer skulls, his father’s art, and anything else you can imagine. There’s a small sitting area where you can lounge on his “conical stick” line, a dining table, a small desk, and numerous other areas to relax and talk and absorb. The whole place is a shrine to JHQ, but it is also Henriette’s home and it really felt alive and welcoming.

A still life of small treasures was found on each of the window sills. Pictured here is an old Dansk display sign, a prototype of one of his later chairs, a pottery ashtray, an old axe handle, and a sculpture (I think it was his father’s) work.  Other sills held one of a kind pieces (including a super-elaborate clock) and other ephemera.

We opened up a large cabinet which held a world of amazing things.  Pottery he made as a child, antique tools, collections, and one-off JQH pieces.  It was almost too overwhelming. I was there for two days and I only absorbed a fraction of what there was to see.

Hey – look at that cool book about pepper mills!  I was happy to see my book prominently displayed amongst other published accounts of JHQ’s work.  Notice the stack of large bowls, including the very rare and valuable wenge rare woods bowl. There were many pieces in the home, but they reserved the rare pieces for display in the great room. As a collector it is great to see many familiar pieces amongst the very rare and one-off pieces that were part of JHQ’s everyday life.

I was very jet lagged and hungry, so the amazing lunch Henriette prepared for us was most welcome.  This was just part of the spread – which also included pickled herring and other Danish delights.  The bread was amazing, the beer was cold, and the company was great – just sitting around hearing stories of JHQ’s life and talking about life and design.  For you collectors who might be curious, we ate off of Brown Mist dishes, Anvil flatware, with some staved teak and Variations thrown in there. The glasses were Simplicity by JHQ, but these were his own which were customized with little decorative clear glass blobs and hand signed on the bottom by him.

After lunch we spent a little time going through the other cabinet filled with JHQ originals. This is Henriette telling us the story on a hand painted mug.  I don’t remember the whole story, but there is a large and very mean looking fish about to eat something quite small and innocent. Must of JHQ’s original art had whimsical stories behind them – he really must have been quite a guy with a huge personality. Of course, it was nerve-racking but very exciting to have all of these fragile, priceless, one of a kind pieces around me.

I’ll end this part of the story with an overall impression from the main home. It really felt like it was a world created by a unique individual, anchored in every aspect of Danish culture and his own family’s history. It was filled with antiques – all pieces JHQ found interesting for one reason or another. It might have been the craftsmanship, the artistry, the story, or just the memory, but it all reflected back on him as a person. Although he was a modern designer in every sense of the word, his home is no glass-walled testament to modernistic ideals. It is a testament to him as a person, which explicitly demonstrates the underlying ideas behind his work. In my book I talk about how his work would often feel just as at home in a medieval castle as in a mid-century Eames era home, and his house explains the historic underpinnings that make this duality possible. I’m personally more interested in the Eames era part of that equation, but experiencing these pieces in this deeply personal setting really brings out the timeless nature of what he was able to accomplish.