Step inside on a Tuesday morning in late June, when the light in Västra Götaland does something it only does in summer — it just stays, pale gold and horizontal, filtering through the old kitchen window at six in the morning and still hanging around past ten at night. The cast-iron wood stove ticks quietly. Outside, two hectares of open farmland stretch toward a treeline of birch and spruce. Nobody is coming down this road today unless they mean to.
That's Holmen 2. A hundred-year-old Swedish country house sitting on just over three hectares of its own land, about ten minutes outside the small town of Högsäter in Färgelanda municipality. It's the kind of place that takes a minute to fully compute — the scale of it, the quiet, the way the barn's dark timber bulk anchors the yard like it's been there since before memory, because it essentially has.
The house itself dates to 1920 and carries its age with confidence rather than apology. Inside the living room, the original log walls have been stripped back and left exposed — not as a design statement, but because whoever did it clearly understood that this is what the house actually is underneath. Run a hand across those logs and you're touching construction from a century ago, still solid. The wood-burning stove in the corner is the social center of the room in October when the first cold front rolls in from the Norwegian plateau. It makes the space feel earned, not decorated.
The kitchen runs on a wood-fired stove too, and this isn't a gimmick. In a house this age, with this setting, cooking over wood makes complete sense — it heats the room, it slows down the morning, and it produces a smell that no gas burner ever will. Two bedrooms and roughly 60 square meters of living space make this a focused, honest home. There's an additional 20 square meters of secondary space that works well for storage or, if you're the type, a small workshop or hobby room.
Then there's the barn. About 200 square meters of it, which puts it firmly in the category of serious infrastructure. It needs renovation — that's stated plainly and fairly — but its bones are there, and for anyone with a practical streak or a longer-term vision, this structure is the most interesting thing on the property. A workshop. Covered storage for a tractor or boat. Space for a small number of animals — a few goats, a handful of sheep. The floor plan alone opens up conversations that most Swedish vacation cottages simply can't have.
The land breaks down into roughly one hectare of forest and two of arable ground. That's room for a kitchen garden that actually feeds you, space for fruit trees, and privacy that you don't have to engineer or negotiate — it just exists, by geography. Högsäter municipality sits in the interior of Bohuslän and northern Dalsland, a region that doesn't get the tourist traffic of the coast but arguably has the better end of the deal: clean lakes, unmarked forest trails, and a pace of life that feels genuinely unhurried.
Nearby Upperudden lake and the various smaller wetlands in the area are within easy reach for kayaking and freshwater fishing. Pike, perch, and bream are common catches. In late summer, the forest floor around here fills with chanterelles and blueberries — Swedes call it "allemansrätten," the right of public access to the land, and it means the countryside around Holmen 2 is effectively yours to walk, forage, and explore. In winter, cross-country ski tracks open up throughout the Färgelanda area, and the stillness of a snow-covered field at this address is a thing that stops you mid-stride.
The town of Högsäter is ten minutes by car and covers the daily essentials — grocery store, café, restaurant, a school for families with children. Färgelanda itself is twenty minutes away with a broader range of services. Uddevalla, one of western Sweden's main regional cities, sits about 45 minutes to the west and puts you within reach of proper healthcare, larger retail, and rail connections. Gothenburg — Sweden's second-largest city, with an international airport — is roughly 90 minutes south, making this a genuinely accessible second home for buyers flying in from elsewhere in Europe.
Gothenburg Landvetter Airport handles direct routes to London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and multiple other European hubs, which matters if you're planning to use this as a vacation home and commute in for longer stretches during summer and autumn. Swedish property law is straightforward for international EU buyers, and there are no restrictions on foreign ownership of rural property. The property is sold with a disclaimer clause (Swedish: friskrivningsklausul), which is standard practice for homes of this age and means the sale is as-is — buyers should factor in a thorough inspection before proceeding, and budget for ongoing improvements over time.
The investment case here isn't about short-term rental yields — this is agricultural and rural residential land, priced well below the cost of comparable plots with similar infrastructure in more trafficked parts of Scandinavia. At this price point, with this much land and a secondary building of this scale, the value is in what you build here over years, not weeks. Swedish countryside properties in good structural condition with genuine land holdings have shown steady appreciation, particularly as interest in rural escapes from Gothenburg and Oslo has grown since 2020.
Key features at a glance:
- 1920s-built country home in good condition for its era, 60sqm living area plus 20sqm secondary space
- 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom — functional layout for a vacation home or rural retreat
- Exposed original log walls in the living room and a wood-burning stove
- Traditional wood-fired kitchen stove — adds warmth and character to daily cooking
- Large barn of approximately 200sqm with renovation potential — workshop, storage, or animal housing
- Total land of just over 3 hectares: approx. 1ha forest, 2ha arable ground
- Private, quiet setting roughly 10 minutes from Högsäter village center
- Access to grocery store, café, and restaurant in Högsäter; Uddevalla ~45 minutes west
- Gothenburg Landvetter Airport approximately 90 minutes south — direct European connections
- Freshwater fishing and foraging on surrounding lakes and forest trails
- Cross-country skiing and hiking accessible directly from the property in season
- No foreign ownership restrictions for EU buyers; sold with disclaimer clause
- Low entry price for a property with this land area and outbuildings in western Sweden
If you've been thinking about a Swedish holiday home that gives you actual space — not a summer cottage surrounded by neighbors you can hear through the wall — this is a rare opportunity to find it at a realistic price. The land, the barn, the century-old bones of the house: it's all there, waiting for someone who wants to put their own mark on it over time.
Reach out through Homestra today to arrange a viewing or request the full property documentation. Properties at this price-to-land ratio in Färgelanda don't wait long once the right buyer finds them.
