Sommerro Hotel in Oslo Taps Into Immersive Neighborhood Trend

25.08.2023 - 14:14 / skift.com / Agatha Christie / Art Deco / Leslie Barrie

It’s trendy for hotels to try to create a live-like-a-local experience for travelers, but Sommerro House in Oslo, which launched in September 2022, will prompt its rivals to level up their games.

A project backed by the Scandinavian billionaire Petter Stordalen, Sommerro is a 231-room “neighborhood hotel” — meaning that it’s full of offerings for locals, like a cinema, a library, and even a restored public bath. It hopes that the hotel appeals to nearby residents as well as travelers who want to feel like residents, too. 

“The hotel is housed in an old office building for an electric company,” explained Siri Løining, brand director. “Locals used to come into the building and pay their bills.”

Sommerro, which is dripping in Art Deco detail, hopes to keep the neighbors coming in — now paying for food and drinks, rather than energy.
 
“When we started this project, we asked, ‘How do we bring the locals into the house, so they feel a part of the project?’,” Løining said.
 
So far, Løining said they’ve hit a nerve — in a good way — and Sommerro is growing, with the new Villa Inkognito, a restored 18th-century villa located adjacent to the property, opening on April 17.

Sommerro has been described as “like walking into the film set for a period Agatha Christie movie.” It belongs to a category of narrative-driven, design-led hotels that Oslo could use more of. The hotel is well situated for travelers — a five-minute walk to the city center and behind the Royal Castle. But it’s also next to a residential area with 60,000 inhabitants.

When Norwegian billionaire Petter Stordalen — who owns Strawberry, a hotel and retail investment corporation that runs Nordic Choice Hotels, Thomas Cook Northern Europe, and other businesses — saw the electric company building near his own office space go up for sale, he snapped at the opportunity.

“You can’t buy soul, and it’s there in this property,” said Løining. “You can uncover the history, which makes it a unique opportunity, compared to just another building that’s new,” said Løining.

Part of that soul is in the design. The building was constructed in the 1920s, with many of its Art Deco elements remaining intact. But also, part of that soul includes neighbors who have distinct memories within its walls.

“An elderly woman came in, and she said ‘I learned to vacuum clean here!’” said Løining. “She took a training course in the building. She was in her eighties and so proud.”

Playing on this nostalgia means creating new experiences to keep locals coming back. The goal, she said, is for locals to have an attachment to this place. She doesn’t see it as a hotel, but rather a “house of experiences.”

“You’ll have someone listening to a live jazz band after work, a pensioner couple