Bjørøya - Bjøreøya - Bjørøen (Eya)
Bjørøya, idyllically located in Krøderfjorden, was originally landlocked with Leirslandet at Maritangen, (by today's bridge) and belonged to the Bjøre farm. A homestead was cleared here quite early on. The last two homesteader families lived here in the latter half of the 19th century.
Thea and Svend Haug
Svend Svendsen (Schartum) Haug (1832-1891) and Anna Mathea (Thea) Sveaas (1839-1923)
Mollerud is the name of a small farm under the mountain Grågalten on the west side of Prestfoss in Sigdal. Svend was born here in 1832.
Little Svend spent his first years in Mollerud, but when he was four years old the family moved from Mollerud to Skartum. However, his father was unable to meet the obligations of the farm purchase, and they had to leave the farm again in 1838, an event which must have made a deep impression on Svend. The family then moved down the valley to Solumshengslet on Solumsmoen, which they later, in 1853, bought. Solumhenslet was then a central location for Sigdal's timber trade, and his father tried to make a living from this timber traffic.
When Svend was confirmed on 24/10-1847, his mother gave him her saved capital approx. NOK 40,- with which Svend started his career as a trader. It was of course the timber trade that was the natural choice given his environmental background. He started small, and in the local district he knew, first as a buyer for other lumber merchants, but with talent and insight he soon started for himself and gradually increased the business considerably. With local knowledge of Simoa's forest tracts, he was able to make advantageous purchases, which he resold to Drammen's exporters.
From his home village, he then expanded his trading area, so that within a short time it came to include larger parts of Drammensvassdraget forest areas. In the small local markets, which played a central role in the lumber trade of the time, he was always a competitor for the Drammen merchants.
On 13 December 1859, almost 28 years old, Svend married the 20-year-old Anna Mathea Sveaas, eldest daughter of timber merchant and farmer Christen Sveaas and Kirsti Johannesdatter Stuverud. At the same time, he bought the farm Haug above Åmot in Modum, his wife's childhood home, from his father-in-law. After the farm purchase, he called himself Svend Haug.
The country house
In the late 1880s, Svend Haug wanted to build himself a country house.
The couple chose Bjørøya for their project. Svend was well known in the area here, which was in the heart of his business district. The location was magnificent.
Thea and Svend Haug first rented Bjørøya for a few years from 1890 before Thea bought the island in 1902 from Erik T. Bjøre for NOK 22,500.
On top of the island, Svend commissioned one of the famous architects of the time, Herman Major Backer (1856-1932), to design a summer house. The house was built in lavish Swiss style and was called "Villa Fridheim".
Over 1,000 m2 of floor space distributed over two main floors, basement, attic and tower room. Construction began in 1890, and the villa was only completed in 1892 after Svend Haug's death.
The house was, among other things, one of the first in the country to have a central heating system installed. It was also one of the country's first prefabricated houses. Villa Fridheim, or "Bjørøen" as it was always referred to in the family, was the Haug family's vacation spot and residence for a few years, right up until around 1912.
Villa Fridheim consisted of prefabricated elements, produced at Svend Haug's sawmill in Drammen. The elements were transported by rail to Krøderen and by horse and sledge / boat from there.