Wilhelmina Skogh
Lorentina Wilhelmina Skogh, born Wahlgren (14 December 1849 in the parish of Rute on Gotland, Sweden - 18 June 1926) was a hotel manager and owned a number of hotels and restaurants in Sweden.
In 1888, she married wine trader Per Samuel Skogh (1849-1904).
She came alone to Stockholm from the island Fårö (north part of Gotland) with steam ship at the age of 14 with the intention to get a job and earn som money to support her family that stayed behind on Gotland. Her father died when Wilhelmina was 6 years old and the family became rather poor. Her first job was to dry the dishes in the restaurant at 'Stromparterren' down below the bridge 'Norrbro' (North bridge), close to the Royal Castle. When she became older she studied in an evening-school beside the work, reading languages and book-keeping. From start at an early age she had the very strong ambition that some day, she would have her own company in the hotel- and restaurant business.
Entrepreneur
She built her first hotel at the age of 27, the railroad hotel in Storvik (outside the town Sandviken) beside the railroad station and formed the company Wilhelmina Wahlgren AB. She continued to buy hotels and after some years she own several hotels along the railroad, most of them in the middle of Sweden. She introduced a lot of new ideas in the hotel- and restaurant business, for instance more vegetables in order to cut down on the expensive meat and worked together with the travel agency Thomas Cook in London to be able to offer luxury accommodations combined with hunting and fishing in Sweden for rich English people. She arranged her own telephone lines between her hotels before the telephone system was introduced on a larger scale in Sweden and installed central heating (steam-heating systems) and electricity with steam-engine driven electric generators in her hotels.
The Grand Lady
Wilhelmina became managing director for Grand Hôtel in Stockholm in 1902 at the age of 53. Her most famous project was to build the Grand Hôtel Royal including a the huge "Winter Garden" in the form of an "annex" to the original hotel building. The idéa behind Royal she got from her first trip to Paris. (Grand Hôtel Royal was earlier the scene of the great Nobel Banquet, which is nowadays held at the Stockholm City Hall in december each year). The "Winter Garden" have a ceiling height of 15 m (49 ft) with room for 800 dinner guests and is still today a cornerstone for what the Hotel can offer.
When her husband Per Skogh died 1904 she arranged with a large gravestone including an angle in marble that cost her a small fortune.
She left Grand Hôtel in dec. 1910 after a dispute with the members of the border about economy.
Villa Foresta
During the year 1908-1910, when she still was working for Grand Hôtel, she built her private house the "Villa Foresta" (named after her last name 'Skog' in Italian) at the island of Lidingö east of Stockhom. Limestone shipped from Gotland was used as building material to a large extent. She lived there until 1922 when her private economy forced her to sell the entire building and move out. A company was formed that took over the entire real estate. (Foresta today is a hotel and owned by the Best Western hotels).
The last four years of her life she lived in a small flat in "Bolinders Palace", a building beside the Grand Hôtel that is included in the hotel complex.
She died in the early morning the 18 June 1926.
References
- Lidingö-Människor & Miljöer - (Lidingö History 1320-1995), by Eric & Nils Forsgren, 1995: ISBN 91-630-3812-9.
- Minnen och upplefvelser - (Memoirs) by Wilhelmina Skogh, 1912: ISBN 91-7160-977-6.
- Grand Hôtel, Stockhom - History (hotel webbsite)
- Hotel Foresta website