Story
about Straand!
Ever since 1864, our hotel has ensured well-being and good service with the guest at the center.
History of Straand Hotel
Ever since the first carriage men entered Straand in 1864, our hotel has ensured well-being and good service with the guest in focus. The hospitality and good traditions have been passed on from generation to generation, and over 150 years later you can still feel at home when you are here. A very special atmosphere can be found in the old part that lives on as a central part of the new hotel. If the solid timber walls in the pleasant living rooms had spoken, they would have had much to tell about the life and activities of earlier times. Straand has an interesting and colorful past that today’s 5th generation hosts, Katrine & Lars Arne Straand, are both proud of and feel obliged to carry forward.
1800s
We have to go back five generations and 157 years – to 1864 – to find the basis for today’s extensive activities at Straand. At that time, Lars Arne’s great-great-grandfather, Olav and his wife Kari, bought upper and lower Straand. What the two took over was considered a smallholding, with a modest living room and a patch of land with a lot of rocks and scrub. The location, on the other hand, was beautiful on the slopes down towards Lake Nisser.
Olav and Kari were a very hard-working couple, who with young courage saw future opportunities also based on the circumstances of the time. In addition to clearing the space for a model farm, Olav took over the bus station in Vrådal. With this, Straand quickly became an important center for all kinds of transport and much of what otherwise happened in the village. Although tourism in the 1800s had not yet reached this part of Telemark, Vrådal was an important hub for road users.
"They built up the environment at Straand into a concept that has been followed up by those who came after – right up to the present day".
At Kari and Olav at Straand, everyone was well received, even though the space must be said to have been extremely modest in the first bus station, which is still to be found in the hotel area. This consisted of a kitchen and living room on the ground floor, as well as a wood or loft above this again. The overnight guests were placed in the living room, the hosts slept in the kitchen, while those who were in the service of Olav and Kari lived in the woods in the early years. When there were many people on the move; It could be agents, magistrates and other “authorities”, it goes without saying that from time to time it could be quite narrow about the beatitude.
However, the travellers preferred to have a cramped life at Straand rather than find another place to live. An important reason was that Kari and Olav had already created their own well-being in the place. In addition, Kari was widely known for her good food, and the coffee at Straand was almost famous at the time.
In the years leading up to the turn of the century, Straand was constantly growing. New buildings were erected and in the stables there could be up to 15-16 horses in the winch ropes. In addition to being Vrådal’s only hotel for many years, the place gradually also gained other important functions. It was “doctor’s days” for the people of the village, and here “scribes, fut and the people met for things” when it was relevant.
Kari and Olav laid the foundation for a business where the focus was always on new opportunities. In this way, they left a rich legacy for the succeeding generations. They built up the environment at Straand into a concept that has been followed up by those who came after – right up to the present day
1900s: Towards new goals
Kari and Olav’s son, Johan, became the next generation at the bus station. He took over the place from his parents in 1902. His wife, Sigrid, had experience from other boarding house operations, and with that there was a new momentum in the hotel business. It was during Sigrid and Johan’s time that the holidaymakers began to show up in earnest, and then naturally first and foremost in the summer.
In 1924, Straand was shaken by a small disaster. Then the hotel, which was built in Swiss style, burned to the ground. However, as the energetic man Johan was, he immediately started building a new one. And already the following year, at Christmas, the new storehouse-style hotel was ready for use.
With its solid timber walls and traditional Telemark style, this is still a central part of today’s modern large hotel at Straand. Together with Sigrid, he carried on the legacy according to the best Straand traditions. He quickly started building the hotel, which now had five rooms and two living rooms on the ground floor, and ten rooms on the floor above.
Even more than his father, Johan had many irons in the fire. In addition to running a coach station and timber transport, he did a lot of trading and acquired several large properties. As a coach station keeper, he experienced the new era, and in 1919 he and 2 relatives bought the first car in Vrådal. He saw very well that it was only a matter of time before the car would come to dominate both passenger and freight transport. In 1929, he therefore acquired the first truck, and also secured a route license in the area. Later, he established a regular route between Vrådal and Skien. This part of his and his family’s business was developed into “Straand Bilruter”. With what has happened in terms of mergers in the transport area in recent years, this Straand commitment is now part of Telemark Bilruter.
The 1900s: Towards Our Own Time
Central to his life’s work was the paternal inheritance at Straand, which he had skillfully passed on and which he handed over to the third generation by his son Sigmund, who together with his wife, Jorunn, took over the operation in 1948. As a natural consequence of the development at Straand, Sigmund invested in education at the hotel trade school during the war. It was with enthusiasm and energy that he took on the task of leading two previous generations of life’s work further into the new era of nascent mass tourism in the early 1950s.
Unfortunately, Sigmund’s working day was to be far too short, when he was suddenly torn away in the middle of his busy working day in 1960, just twelve years after he had taken over the business. By then, however, his son, Johan, had already decided to carry on the family traditions, even though he was quite young at the time.
After taking the hotel trade school and gaining experience from Park Hotel in Sandefjord, he took over and bought Straand Hotel from his mother in 1973. Since 1973, the hotel has developed rapidly, and today it stands out as one of Telemark’s largest and best hotels.
Listen to Johan Straand tell the story of Straand Hotel
The episode above was part of season 2 in Telemarkspodden.
After several expansions in the 70s and 80s and further into the 21st century, the hotel today has 125 rooms, a large restaurant, dance bar, pub, piano bar, swimming pool, fitness room, lounges, wine cellar and not least a large and well-equipped conference department. Vrådal Hotel eventually became part of Straand and new self-catering cabins were built. A few years ago, Vrådal Hotel was converted into holiday apartments. Vrådal Booking became a reality, and in this company, Straand provides cabins, apartments and services to those who want self-catering. Johan has also developed the beach area down by Nisser, where there is an outdoor restaurant and the venerable veteran boat M/S Fram from 1909. In a good entrepreneurial spirit, a lot of work has been done during Johan’s time to further develop Vrådal as a tourism destination. After three years at the Norwegian Hotel College in Stavanger, and several years of practice at various hotels within the Choice chain, in 2008 Johan’s eldest son, Sigmund, joined the company. Sigmund and Elin hosted at Straand until 2019 when Sigmund wanted to do something else.
2019 and beyond
In the summer of 2019, Johan’s youngest son, Lars Arne, and Katrine moved home to Vrådal to take over the operation of the “general store” Straand. Prior to that, Lars Arne had worked in technology, strategy, system development and project management at the consulting company Accenture. Katrine Samdal Straand, who is from Bergen, comes from the position of Head of Marketing and Sales, Construction & Real Estate, Oslo in Multiconsult Norway. Both are looking forward to seizing this opportunity to manage and further develop the historic family group so that Straand and Telemark’s cultural heritage is safeguarded in a good way in the future.
"Vrådal is a unique holiday destination, both summer and winter, with elements from the past, present and future"
