Frogner Manor

In the Middle Ages, Frogner became ecclesiastical property, mostly owned by the Hovedøya Abbey, but was confiscated by the Crown in 1532, preceding the Reformation.

Scheel's log house was probably intended for a farm manager, and his plan may have been to build a more monumental residence as the focal point of the garden, symmetrical to its axis, and with a splendid view to the Frogner lake on the opposite side.

He added a timber-framed extension to the west to complete the symmetry, and a central wall dormer, in front of a grand reception room in the attic.

Scheel completed the transformation by covering the log walls behind timber-framing with brick infill, all finished with white-washed plaster, looking like masonry.

[1] In 1790 the estate was bought by timber merchant and shipowner Bernt Anker (1746–1805), Norway's richest person at the time.

Among many foreign visitors Thomas Malthus enjoyed dancing in the ballroom in 1799[3] Bernt Anker died a childless widower in 1805.

His business was hard hit by the economic depression during and after the Napoleonic wars, and he eventually went bankrupt and was forced to sell Frogner by auction in 1836.

The buyer was the director-general of the Modum Blue Colour Works, Benjamin Wegner, who was married to Henriette Seyler of the Hamburg Berenberg banking dynasty.

[6] The former U.S. president and general Ulysses S. Grant visited Kristiania in the summer of 1878, and attended a gala dinner at Frogner with his entourage.

The seter (mountain dairy farm) of Frogner was situated near the summit of the Holmenkollen hill north of Oslo, and included parts of the Nordmarka forest.