Fjærland sat isolated for centuries at the head of a narrow arm of the Sognefjord, reachable only by boat until a road connection finally opened in the 1990s, and its farming families raised grain, livestock, and apples in relative seclusion. A modest guesthouse went up on the waterfront in 1937, built during the uneasy years between the two world wars as outside interest in Norway’s fjord scenery began to grow.
It operated quietly for decades until Bård Huseby, spending everything he had, converted it into a proper hotel in the 1980s and again renovated it in 2012, adding private bathrooms to each of its 14 rooms while keeping the original white clapboard structure and narrow top-floor staircases intact. Locals still treat the hotel as a village gathering place on weekends. The Norwegian Glacier Museum sits a short drive away, and Fjærland’s several secondhand bookshops, opened in the old farm buildings after the road connection arrived, have earned the hamlet a reputation as Norway’s book town.