The Sunday Times

Svenskt Tenn home, 2

VERSION

Words Katrina Burroughs Photographs Stellan Herner

REPRO OP

Opposite Elin Lervik chilling with the bunny family. Right The statement staircase, designed by her husband, Alexander, leads visitors from the entrance to the kitchen, on the first floor. Below The library features furniture and fabrics from Svenskt Tenn, where Elin is press manager. Made homely with books, plants and velvet armchairs, this is the room that most reflects her love of the Swedish designer Estrid Ericson

SUBS

A power couple of Swedish design, Elin and Alexander Lervik assumed they were city people. Living in a fifthfloor apartment in the smart Sodermalm district of central Stockholm for the past 11 years, they relished the nightlife, galleries and gyms, and the activities it offered their five children. The family was merrily metropolitan. Right up until they weren’t. Elin, 40, says: “I was pregnant with Olle and the Covid pandemic came that spring, so we were spending a lot of time in our country house. When we got back to Stockholm that August the difference was so big, going from nature to people doing drugs and being drunk out on the street. It was like, we are done.” Now the couple have swapped city lights for a life straight out of Nordic folklore, living on the edge of the forest at Saltsjobaden, 20 minutes from Stockholm, on a plot where red deer wander through the trees into their garden. They have christened their four-bedroom house Villa Lervik. As well as their three youngest children, Ingrid, 13, Evar, 9, and Olle, 1, two dogs, a cat and six rabbits live with them. “It’s almost like having a small farm,” says

ART PRODUCTION CLIENT

into the woods

When the creative power couple Elin and Alexander Lervik were hunting for their Scandi dream house, they never thought they’d settle on a flatpack 1960s build on the edge of a forest. The finishing touch? House bunnies 32 • The Sunday Times Style

BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN

The Sunday Times Style • 33

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