1-Bed Timber Cottage on 6,200m² in Historic Skärklacken – Swedish Countryside Vacation Home



Skärklacken 1, 786 97 Björbo, Gagnefs kommun, Sweden, Björbo (Sweden)
1 Bedrooms · 0 Bathrooms · 50m² Floor area
€90,000
Country home
No parking
1 Bedrooms
0 Bathrooms
50m²
Garden
No pool
Not furnished
Description
Step inside on a cool June morning and you'll hear it before you see it: the low creak of hand-hewn timber walls adjusting to the day's warmth, the faint scent of linseed oil paint that has soaked into every surface for over a century. Outside, the birch trees lining Skärklacken's lane are in full leaf, and somewhere down the track, a neighbour's cowbell carries across the meadow. This is not a renovated-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life weekend escape. This is the real thing.
Skärklacken has been documented since 1664, when it operated as a traditional Swedish fäbod — a seasonal mountain pasture where farming families would move their livestock each summer. By the early 1900s, 22 farms clustered here and some 250 cows grazed the surrounding meadows. When the railway pushed through the Dalälven valley, the settlement transformed quietly into a small workers' community, complete with its own shop. The timber cottages that housed those railway families are still standing. This is one of them.
The building itself is a two-storey log structure, and whoever has cared for it over the decades understood the difference between maintenance and interference. The walls carry their age well. Original doors, frames, and mouldings remain in place — not as a design affectation, but because they were simply never replaced. Ceilings, walls, and woodwork have been treated with traditional linseed oil paint in the old Dalarna manner, which gives the interior that warm, slightly matte glow you see in the open-air museum at Zorngården in nearby Mora. The ground floor living area has been fitted with new Floda pine flooring, and it sits comfortably alongside the older elements without trying to upstage them.
Heat comes from two tiled stoves and a wood-burning hearth. On a cold April evening — and in Björbo, April evenings are still cold — you light the stove, the room warms from the floor up, and the house feels genuinely alive. There's no underfloor heating buzzing away, no heat pump humming in a cupboard. Just fire and timber.
There is no indoor running water, which sounds like a drawback until you spend a weekend here and realise it's part of the point. A natural spring on the plot feeds a tap with clean, cold water at natural pressure. Many buyers come looking for exactly this: a place where daily life slows to a different rhythm, where fetching water or chopping wood is a pleasure rather than a chore.
The upper floor holds additional space, some of it unfinished — a blank canvas that previous owners haven't yet touched. Add a sleeping loft for children, a reading room, a second bedroom. The structure is sound; the choices are yours.
Out on the 6,200-square-metre plot, a substantial timbered outbuilding runs in a row along the edge of the courtyard. The stalls where horses once stood are still visible inside, the worn timber worn smooth in ways that only decades of use can produce. Adjoining this, a new timber frame has been erected and is ready to be completed as a sauna — or, with a little more ambition, as a separate guest cottage. Sweden without a sauna is a concept most Swedes find faintly absurd, and the infrastructure is already in place. The whole property is framed by a traditional wooden fence with a swinging gate, the kind you see painted ochre-red on old farmsteads throughout Dalarna.
The lake at Stora Bortbergstjärnen is 2.1 kilometres away on foot — a flat walk through forest and meadow that takes about 25 minutes. In summer the water is clear and cold, ideal for morning swims or an afternoon with a canoe. Pike and perch are plentiful for anyone who wants to fish. The surrounding forests are cross-country skiing terrain in winter; local trails connect to a wider network around Gagnef municipality. Lingonberries and chanterelles appear in the forest floor each autumn, and picking them is not a novelty here — it's what people do.
Björbo village, a few minutes by car, covers the essentials: a small grocery, petrol, a café that does proper cinnamon buns on Fridays. The market town of Leksand is roughly 35 kilometres northeast along Road 70 and hosts the famous Midsommar celebration each June — one of the largest in Sweden — drawing thousands to its maypole dancing on the shores of Lake Siljan. Falun, the regional hub and home to the UNESCO-listed copper mine and the historic Falun Rödfärg paint factory (yes, the same red paint that colours the fence posts here), is about 50 kilometres south. Borlänge, with its train station connecting to Stockholm in under three hours, sits roughly 40 kilometres away.
For international buyers considering this property as a vacation home or second home in Sweden, the legal path to ownership is relatively uncomplicated. EU and EEA citizens face no restrictions on purchasing Swedish residential property. Non-EU buyers should take advice on ownership structures, though private purchase remains accessible in most cases. Sweden has no annual property tax on private residences in the traditional sense; instead, a modest municipal fee applies. The property is registered in Gagnefs kommun, and the local authority is known for being straightforward to deal with.
As a rental investment, Skärklacken offers something that generic cabin rentals on platforms like Airbnb cannot replicate: documented historical context and a genuinely rare atmosphere. Demand for authentic Swedish countryside experiences — particularly among Scandinavian city dwellers from Stockholm and Gothenburg — has grown steadily. A finished sauna and a tidied-up upper floor would move this property into a strong short-term rental bracket for summer and winter seasons alike.
The condition is good. This is not a ruin-with-potential requiring years of structural remediation. It is a working, habitable cottage with original character intact and a few targeted improvements still available to the next owner.
Key features at a glance:
- 1-bedroom, 50m² timbered log cottage dating to the historic Skärklacken fäbod settlement, documented since 1664
- Generous 6,200m² plot with meadow, outbuildings, and mature trees
- Original linseed oil-painted walls, ceilings, and woodwork throughout
- New Floda pine flooring on the ground floor, complementing original doors and mouldings
- Heated by two tiled stoves and a wood-burning hearth — no utility-dependent systems
- Natural spring on the plot with tap providing fresh water at natural pressure
- Unfinished upper floor offering scope for additional bedroom or living space
- Large historic timbered outbuilding with original horse stalls intact
- New timber frame ready for completion as sauna or guest cottage
- Traditional wooden fence with gate enclosing a private courtyard
- Stora Bortbergstjärnen lake 2.1km away — swimming, fishing, canoeing
- Cross-country ski trails through surrounding Dalarna forest in winter
- 40km to Borlänge train station (Stockholm in under 3 hours)
- 35km to Leksand's famous Midsommar celebration on Lake Siljan
- Priced at €90,000 — rare entry point for an authentic second home in Sweden
This kind of property doesn't come along often. Timber cottages with this level of original detail, in a settlement with this depth of documented history, on a plot this size — most of them are either already in family hands or have been renovated beyond recognition. This one is still itself. If you've been looking for a genuine Swedish countryside retreat, a vacation home in Dalarna that gives you something to actually feel rather than just photograph, get in touch through Homestra to arrange a viewing. Bring good boots. The walk to the lake is worth doing on your first visit.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 1
- Size
- 50m²
- Price per m²
- €1,800
- Garden size
- 6265m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 0
- Has swimming pool
- No
- Property type
- Country home
- Energy label
Unknown
Images






Sign up to access location details



































