As Wanås became better known, more high-
profile artists began taking on site-specific
commissions. Many of them visited the
property for inspiration, and they would often
spend weeks installing their pieces. Fascinated
by t he r it ua l of t he estate’s deer hunts,
Abramović created The Hunt Chair for Animal
Spirits, a towering metal chair embellished
with antlers, and installed it in an overgrown
field. Maya Lin placed her land-art piece Eleven
Minute Line, a squiggly grass-covered berm, in
an active cow pasture. Jenny Holzer carved
hundreds of her truisms—witty philosophical
and political one-liners—into the old stones
that surround the property; the text is so small
that you often have to squat to read it. Some
artists, joked Carl-Gustaf, have been so
entranced by their surroundings they didn’t
want to leave. He recounted how German artist
Stefan Wewerka, who created a small stepped
bridge over a stream, “finished his work early
but stayed on for a week, cooking soups and
broths for us.”
While Marika was spearheading the world-
class art park, Carl-Gustaf was modernizing the
estate’s farm, which had focused on livestock,
milk production and forestry for centuries.
Most of the locals thought he was crazy when he
decided to convert to organic dairy farming.
Today Wanås is one of the biggest such farms in
Sweden. In the early 2000s Carl-Gustaf had a
new cow barn built—a striking Modernist
concrete structure, featuring an imposing
triangular façade, that looks more like a church
or a museum. “The new barn was inspired by
the art,” Carl-Gustaf told me, and I immediately
thought of American artist Jene Highstein’s
Grey Clam, a monumental, bivalve-shaped
concrete platform tucked among beech trees in
the forest. “We asked ourselves, why can’t we
ma ke a fa r m bui lding t hat is beautif u l? We
were inspired by the artists to do something
different, to take risks.”
At the same time, they began converting old
farm buildings into spaces for art. One five-
story barn was given over entirely to Ann
Hamilton’s sprawling masterpiece Lignum.
Using all five floors like a tapestry, the artist
wove together sound and sculptural elements
that refer to the history of the building, the
estate and the region. One floor is filled with
carved wooden tables; another has cotton
threads stretched from beam to beam, forming
loom-like screens.
T
he latest phase of development at
Wanås—the new restaurant and
hotel—has been overseen by Marika
and Carl-Gustaf ’s oldest son, Baltzar.
Four years ago, he and his wife, Kristina,
moved here with their four young girls to take
over management of the estate, making the
couple the eighth generation of Wachtmeisters
to run the place. Kristina, an architect who
interned under Rem Koolhaas, designed the
restaurant interior and the hotel guest rooms,
incorporating family heirlooms, vintage pieces,
and furniture she commissioned from local
artisans that uses wood and leather from
Wanås. With no hospitality experience, she did
extensive research and reached out to some of
Sweden’s best talents, seeking advice from
Jeanette Mix, owner of the Stockholm boutique
hotel Ett Hem, and chefs Magnus Nilsson and
Mathias Dahlgren.
“Mathias gave us some great advice,”
Kristina recalled. “He said we shouldn’t worry
about fine dining and instead find a signature
dish that everyone dreams about, whether it’s
our cardamom buns or the tartare made from
the farm’s own beef. Whatever it is, people
eating here should wake up the next morning
thinking about that dish.” She added, “For me
that dish is our soft ice cream, which we make
exclusively from the milk of our own cows.”
That morning she had her daughters collect
wild violets to put on top of the ice cream.
Just as art has no borders at Wanås, neither
will the restaurant. “For the most part, we will
serve our dishes in the restaurant, but we are
thinking about making picnics for guests to
take with them into the park,” Kristina said.
According to Baltzar, the secret to Wanås’s
success has been its openness. “With many of
these old estates there were codes, and modern
ways tended to be frowned upon,” he explained.
“Properties were typically closed off and kept
for the family. But my parents showed what a
great journey it could be if we opened up the
estate to contemporary culture and the rest of
the world.”TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / OCTOBER 2017 95