He is known as Minister of Local Government, mayor of Fåberg and three-term member of the Parliament of Norway.
He was born in Fåberg as a son of mason and smallholder Ole Håvemoen (1873–1956) and housewife Anna Mathisen (1870–1962).
He took education as a painter, but made a career as a trade unionist in the Norwegian Union of Building Industry Workers, where he was a national board member from 1933 to 1940 and 1945 to 1974.
He served as deputy mayor of Fåberg from 1937 to 1945, except for the years 1941 to 1945 during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany.
From February to August 1963 he was the Norwegian Minister of Local Government in Gerhardsen's Third Cabinet.