Historic interiors
Rooms on three floors of the villa are open to visitors. During the years the Berentsen family owned the villa, few changes were made to its original interior from 1881. A visit to Breidablikk is therefore like stepping into the past. The dominant style is the so-called klunkestilen (a Victorian style) popular in the late 1800s, and no detail of interior décor is left to chance. Here you can see then-contemporary furniture, opulent chandeliers, ceramic stoves, flower arrangements, small decorative objects and bits and bobs. The house also contains a large art collection which includes several paintings by Kitty Kielland and other famous Norwegian artists.
The ground floor furnishings are as they were in the 1950s. Here one finds the library, living room and salon with the so-called ‘smoking room’. In the stately dining room, the table is set for a dinner party.
One floor up, there are four bedrooms with different styles of furniture from the period 1850 – 1930. The housemaids’ cramped quarters testify that not everyone in the house had equal social status.
The basement contains the laundry room, which shows how clothing was traditionally washed using a washboard, washtubs and large pot for heating water. Here there are also a pantry, wine cellar and the bomb-shelter that the family installed in 1939.
In the barn is an exhibit of farming implements and horse-drawn vehicles. Breidablikk’s park is also worth visiting.