The Black Death emptied this agricultural region on the island of Tysnes in the 14th century, and farming didn’t fully recover until the 1500s. Norway’s largest landowner, naval officer Axel Mowat, gave several local farms to Ludvig Rosenkrantz in 1658 as a wedding dowry when Rosenkrantz married Mowat’s daughter Karen, and the Rosenkrantz family held the estate for nearly three centuries afterward. The Haaheim family bought a farm and surrounding land in Uggdal from the Rosenkrantzs in 1717, gradually expanding the property with new houses over the following two centuries.
In 1907, they built the Swiss-inspired guesthouse that still forms the core of the property today, opening it to travelers making their way through the Hardangerfjord region. The estate remains centered on a working farm setting, with a cultural garden holding some 1,500 roses, and it draws on its long agricultural roots for a restaurant built around traditional Norwegian farm cooking. It joined Historic Hotels Worldwide in 2013 and was a finalist for Best Historic Hotel in Europe in 2025.