He was the eldest of ten children of Johan Storm Bull (1787–1838) and Anna Dorothea Borse Geelmuyden (1789–1875).

In 1832 in Paris he shared rooms with Frederic Chopin as well as the Moravian violin virtuoso Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst.

[citation needed] Catherine Darwin told her brother about a Shrewsbury concert when "the best performer was Ole Bull on the Violin, who I think very superior to Paganini".

Bull was caught up in a rising tide of Norwegian romantic nationalism, and acclaimed the idea of Norway as a sovereign state, separate from Sweden—which became a reality in 1905.

[8] He was concertmaster at the National Peace Jubilee (June 15–19, 1869) which featured an orchestra of 525 players[citation needed] Robert Schumann once wrote that Bull was among "the greatest of all," and that he was on a level with Niccolò Paganini for the speed and clarity of his playing.

He collected many beautiful violins and violas of Amati, Gasparo da Salò, Guarneri, Stradivari and others.

He was the owner of one of the finest violins of the world, made by Gasparo da Salò around 1574 for Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria.

[11] Bull called the highest point in Valhalla, Nordjenskald, which became the location of his unfinished castle.

Their children were: In 1868 Bull met Sara Chapman Thorp (1850–1911), the daughter of a prosperous lumber merchant from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

On a return visit in 1870, despite their age difference (he was 60, she was 20), Bull began a courtship, and the couple was secretly married in Norway in June 1870, with a formal wedding in Madison later that year.

He hired architect Conrad Fredrik von der Lippe (1833–1901) to design a residence on the island.