The boat takes five minutes. Five minutes, and the mainland—with its traffic and noise and ordinary Tuesday mornings—simply disappears. You cut across the water toward Husøya, the engine humming beneath you, and what comes into view is a 160-year-old Trønderlån farmhouse standing against the Norwegian sky, four private islands fanning out around it like a personal archipelago. This is not a metaphor. It is the actual daily reality of owning this estate in Husøyvær, just outside Skutvik on the Hamarøy peninsula in Nordland county.
The main house was built around 1860 and carries that era's particular confidence—thick walls, tall windows facing the sea, a floor plan that wastes no space but somehow feels generous. Upstairs, five bedrooms spread out along a wide landing. Ground level holds two living rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and an entrance vestibule that has absorbed a century and a half of wet boots and returning fishermen. Below that, a lower vestibule and two storage rooms. In total, 154 square meters of interior living space, with a total usable footprint across all structures reaching 360 square meters. The bones are solid. The condition is good. What you bring is your vision for how it evolves.
But the house is almost beside the point—or rather, it's the anchor for something far larger. The total lot size across this entire estate comes to over 6.6 million square meters. Say that number slowly. It encompasses Husøya itself plus four additional islands, each privately owned, each entirely yours. Sandy beaches that see no footprints but your own. Meadows going yellow in late August. Coastal forest where the only sound is wind moving through birch and the occasional complaint of an oystercatcher. To find this kind of solitude anywhere in Europe at this price point is genuinely rare.
The boathouse—68 square meters of it—sits at the water's edge and will become the nerve center of your time here. Kayaks, a fishing dinghy, perhaps a small motorboat for island-hopping: this is where the day begins. The waters around Hamarøy are exceptional for sea fishing, particularly cod and pollock, and the sheltered bays between islands make for flat-water kayaking even when the open Vestfjord gets choppy. Two annexes (12 and 22 square meters respectively) give you overflow guest accommodation or workshop space—useful when you realize that family visits here have a way of stretching from a planned long weekend into three weeks. Two utility buildings handle the practical overflow: gear storage, workshop space, whatever a property of this scale requires.
The terraces—49 square meters in total—face the kind of view that people put on screensavers. Except here you drink your morning coffee in front of it.
Hamarøy itself has a distinctive cultural identity that sets it apart from more tourist-heavy parts of the Norwegian coast. The Nobel Prize-winning author Knut Hamsun was born here, and the Hamsun Centre in Presteid—about 30 kilometers from Skutvik along the E6—is an architecturally arresting building designed by Steven Holl, worth the drive alone. The local Hamsun Days festival draws writers and readers each summer, and the surrounding landscape carries that same dramatic, slightly melancholy quality that runs through his prose. This is not Lofoten with its postcard fishing villages and Instagram crowds. Hamarøy is quieter, more itself.
Skutvik village, a short boat ride away, handles the essentials: a small harbor, fuel, the ferry connection across Vestfjord to Svolvær in Lofoten when the mood strikes for a day trip. The regional center of Fauske sits roughly 70 kilometers south, offering supermarkets, a hospital, and the Nordlandsbanen railway line connecting south toward Trondheim and north toward Bodø. Bodø's airport—the main hub for Nordland—is approximately 90 kilometers away, with direct flights to Oslo taking around an hour and fifteen minutes. Reachable, then, but not trivially close. Which is rather the point.
The season here runs long if you let it. June and July bring the midnight sun—actual, disorienting, wonderful midnight sun—when light floods the islands at 2 a.m. and sleep becomes optional. August softens into the first hints of autumn color, the cloudberries ripening in the bogs. September and October turn the landscape theatrical with gold and rust. Winter delivers something else entirely: the northern lights appear regularly over the water from November through February, and with no light pollution from neighboring properties, this estate offers front-row seats. Snowshoeing across frozen ground between the islands is surreal and completely possible.
The property has appeared on Norwegian television—NRK's "Der ingen skulle tru at nokon ville bu" and "Ragnar og Sigfred og de sju havstrauman," as well as a documentary for the nature program "Ut i naturen"—which gives some indication of just how visually distinctive this place is. It's the kind of property that film crews seek out precisely because it looks like nowhere else.
For international buyers, a few practical notes. Norway is not part of the EU, but EEA membership means the legal framework for foreign property ownership is relatively straightforward for European buyers. The property is freehold (selveier), meaning full ownership with no ground rent. Annual property taxes and municipal fees are modest, keeping holding costs low during periods when you're not in residence. Norwegian property law is transparent and well-established, and a local solicitor in Fauske or Bodø can guide you through the process efficiently. Rental income potential exists—high-concept coastal retreats in Norway command strong short-term rental rates—though many buyers of properties like this choose to keep them entirely private.
Key features at a glance:
- Historic Trønderlån farmhouse circa 1860, five bedrooms, one bathroom, 154 sqm interior / 360 sqm total usable area
- Four privately owned additional islands included in the sale
- Total estate area exceeding 6.6 million square meters
- Private sandy beaches across multiple islands
- 68 sqm boathouse with water access for boats and kayaks
- Two guest annexes (12 sqm and 22 sqm)
- Two utility/storage buildings (5 sqm and 69 sqm)
- 49 sqm of outdoor terracing with sea views
- Boat-access only – 5 to 6 minute crossing from the mainland ensuring complete privacy
- Good structural condition throughout, scope for personal renovation upgrades
- Freehold ownership, low annual running costs
- Northern lights visible over open water in winter, midnight sun in summer
- 90 km to Bodø Airport, direct flights to Oslo
- Featured on multiple NRK television programs
- Proximity to Knut Hamsun Centre in Presteid, 30 km away
Properties that include their own islands do not come to market often. Properties that include four of them, wrapped around a 160-year-old farmhouse with a working boathouse and private beaches, in a part of Norway this visually dramatic—that essentially never happens. If you've been looking for a second home in Europe that offers genuine escape rather than a slightly quieter version of ordinary life, this is a different category entirely.
Get in touch with the team at Homestra to arrange a viewing visit. Given the boat-access logistics, viewings are organized in advance, and we're happy to coordinate the full journey from your nearest airport. This is the kind of property you need to stand on to fully understand—and once you do, the decision tends to make itself.
