Jan-Owe Wikström

Jan-Owe Wikström from Hallandsposten interviewed Åsa and Per Gessle about Hotel Tylösand. The hotel was originally built by court photographer Johan Hallberg as Restaurant Tylösand in 1915 for 13,000 SEK. Until 1929 it could only be accessed by boat. Today it is one of Halmstad’s strongest brands and tourist magnets, but also – the hotel in the hearts of Per and Åsa Gessle.

The hotel has come a long way until it has transformed into an exclusive spa hotel.

Per notes that there is nothing worse than a hotel where you are greeted by an empty entrance or a deserted reception. He explains:

We want a wow feeling when you enter Hotel Tylösand. You can directly see the car hall, fantastic works of art and sculptures. And we’re going to build a bar in the reception where you can hang out a bit. Sometimes there will be a pianist, so that you automatically end up in a lively environment when you check in.
Because it’s just like with everything else, album sleeves, intros to songs – the first impression is the most important.

Åsa agrees:

The reception is important, the first contact. No matter how shabby hotels are, the reception almost always looks reasonably nice. We also have a nice reception, but it has been there for many years, so it’s time to rebuild, so that it blends in with the new “Front House”.

Åsa – spider in the web

The Front House is a new part of the hotel, with large brown-glazed terraces, the Ronnie Peterson conference room and the car hall with Per’s exclusive Ferrari collection. The rooms in Strandhuset and in Stora huset, the reconstruction of Solgården, Bettan’s Bar, Leif’s Bar & Grill and the new The Spa, but also details such as the small unique room signs, the wrought iron fence around the hotel, the color of the staff’s different clothes, the porcelain in the restaurants and of course – the green apples. Everything bears, in one way or another, Åsa Gessle’s signature. She says humbly:

I don’t think many people know what I do apart from the lamps I have designed. After all, I’m here on an almost daily basis and see things that are good and things that can and need to be improved.
I guess I’m a bit of a spider in the web, as far as aesthetics are concerned. Then when it comes to the actual design of, for example, a room, the architectural firm is responsible for the shell and I for the details, the choice of materials and the colors.

But despite all that, Åsa has no official title at the hotel.

No, not as far as I know. I’ll probably have to ask Jonas.

She laughs, referring to the new CEO Jonas Karlén, who a while ago replaced the long-standing CEO Elisabeth Haglund, who has now in turn replaced Björn Nordstrand as chairman of the board.

To have a significant role alongside Per is extra important for Åsa.

When you live next to a famous person, like Per, you easily become just his wife. But for me it goes without saying to have my own identity. It’s fundamental in my life. I started working more when our son Gabriel was ten years old and I felt that I could be away more than before. And Gabbe – who is just as motivated as his father – once said: “Mum, I don’t want to be known for being my father’s son, but I want to be known for having done something myself”. That’s exactly how I feel too.

At the same time, Per has become more actively involved in the hotel in recent years.

Yes, Åsa has always been involved, but in the last ten years I have taken up more and more space, had more and more ideas and opinions. We have had a strong and common line that our hotel should not only be a place where you sleep and eat, but also a place where you can be creative, socialize and have new experiences.
What makes Hotel Tylösand so special is the diversity. We have a huge art and photo gallery. We have a Spa with skin and hair care, various treatments, laser technology and a Spa shop. We have 230 rooms and suites, we have four restaurants, 32 conference rooms with room for up to 750 people at the same time. Then there is Solgården, the amphitheater, all the DJs and the Roxette and Gyllene Tider museum. Plus Northern Europe’s coolest car hall is now located in the hotel.

Jan-Owe asks if it’s only Northern Europe’s coolest car hall.

Okay then. The only one in the world I know. I think a hotel in Las Vegas had a Ferrari store once upon a time, but that hotel is torn down now.

Took over the run-down Reso hotel in 1995

But it wasn’t like that in 1995 when pop star Per Gessle and businessman Björn Nordstrand took over Hotel Tylösand. It was a run-down Reso hotel with simple rooms, a restaurant and Tylöhus that reeked of the old ’80s.

Åsa says:

We had travelled around the world and stayed in many nice hotels and seen many fun interior details. But when we took over the hotel… the old house was rotten. The rooms were spartan with small, small bathrooms with a small mirror and a shelf underneath with toilet paper rolls on them.
So the first thing I did was fix and place the toilet rolls where they belong, a little further down. And to introduce green apples in the hotel. Philipe Starck and his hotel had apples and in their receptions it was written “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. I liked that. At first, people didn’t think I was smart. But I got through it. It’s only for Christmas that I give in, but then the apples have to be dark red, haha.

Hotel Tylösand 2023 and Hotel Tylösand 1995 have not much more in common than the name.

Åsa remembers:

No, we have added a lot during these 27 years. But we have also removed a lot. All the artificial plants that collected so much dust. And the entrance in lime green and pink, with tiles that looked more like a bathhouse entrance.
At Tylöhus there were mirrors on the ceiling. And the restaurant had pink carpet with seagulls in burgundy and burgundy velvet curtains. It was horrible.
But now we have a line, a common thread in all activities at the hotel and I think it creates a sense of calmness for the guest when there is completeness.

Craftsmanship in the blood

Jan-Owe doesn’t think that Åsa is a trained designer and has attended a lot of great courses.

No, no, I’m just like my husband is in music, self-taught. And we both take help when we need it. It is important to find the right people to collaborate with, preferably personalities who inspire and think a little differently. It is of course also important that the employees understand your vision, so that we pull in the same direction.
And there, Abelardo (Gonzalez), the architect who designed our house, has been a great inspiration and teacher. I rejected eleven kitchen suggestions from him when we built the villa before we agreed. He likes cold materials while I like warm, but eventually, there was a tension where he taught me to keep my eyes open and that nothing is impossible.

Although with a mother who was a seamstress, a great-grandfather who was a slipper maker and a grandfather who was a blacksmith, Åsa already had craftsmanship, creativity and a sense of color and form in her blood.

Well, I was always tinkering around my bed at home, making sure it was nice. After all, we were four children and we grew up with a single mother in very simple conditions, so if you wanted something, you had to be creative and fix it yourself, learn to do well with small tools.

Åsa, who eventually got to display a few stores in Trelleborg, has also brought that thinking to the hotel.

Creating environments doesn’t really have to cost a lot of money. I’m not a geek for branded furniture, but the important thing is that it should feel right. Then if I go to Myrorna and shop, it has no significance. It’s all about the feeling.

Åsa glances at one of the large Monstera plants and smiles:

SEK 299 at Blomsterlandet. So I took the shuttle service there.
In this environment, you also can’t have too expensive things, because they get broken, they are used a lot. There is a huge amount of wear and tear everywhere in a hotel. This is why function is important. And we buy large quantities.
I also don’t like to throw things away, so we reuse what we can.

Sketches by hand

There are also lots of Ferrari details on the shelf inside the Ronnie Peterson Lounge.

Åsa says:

Apart from three books, everything is taken from our private collection. And we had the coasters for the conference table in the hotel’s hiding places. They were unused for some reason, but now they fulfill a function. Super stylish as well.

In the new part of the hotel, The Front House, there are several large sun terraces inspired by the Whitby Hotel in New York, the car hall and the Ronnie Peterson Lounge conference room are Åsa’s latest creations.

I wanted the Ronnie Lounge to be “masculine” and “with a motor feel”, but still with a lot of warmth. Stone is quite cold and cars are tough, so it automatically becomes masculine. And the big screen was really important. When you come from outside and look in, I think it’s beautiful and important that you see movement. Cars and life are always in motion.

The giant conference table inside the Ronnie Peterson Lounge is one of the things that Åsa has designed by hand.

Unlike the rest of the family, I don’t like computers but still sketch with pen and paper. I love to draw and then have it built. A bit like Per. He sits and tinkles on something and then, out of it, comes an idea that eventually becomes a finished text or song. For me, it’s the same when I sketch. I have everything in my head. I can see it in front of me, but cannot present it technically, like a construction drawing. Then it’s important to surround yourself with sensitive people who understand me, such as Östra’s Carpentry here in Halmstad when it comes to fine carpentry.

Inside and outside must meet

The large glass partitions also allow visitors outside to see in and those inside to see out.

It is important that the inside and the outside are connected and become a unit. The greenery outside plays a big role, how everything looks outside the hotel. Here we have boxwood, grass and ivy – not so much flowers, but more evergreen.
When I made a display apartment for HFAB (Halmstad’s real estate company) in 2007, that was also one of the basic ideas. And the person who eventually bought the apartment ended up keeping everything as it was presented. Including all furnishings. Then I felt that I had succeeded.

The end wall inside the Ronnie Peterson room is adorned with huge black and white photos from Peterson’s Formula 1 era. And the walls in the hall are made of granite.

I want a basic tone based on earth and nature and instead add the colors in the details. I basically have a rather sacral taste and am convinced that calm colors make people calm. And stone is very soothing. I designed the statues and the bench from scratch where visitors can sit and relax and look at the cars through the windows. It’s fantastic. A bit like in a museum.

The car hall top secret

Åsa reveals the fact that it would become a car hall was well hidden for a long time:

Yes, it was top secret. We designed it as a conference room, because even the builders wouldn’t know about it from the beginning. We didn’t want it to leak out.
Then it became a long process. I started building a fitting room in November 2019, which was ready in January 2020. But when we were about to put the shovel in the ground, the pandemic came and shut down Sweden in March 2020.

The inauguration of the new hotel part happened this spring, where there are now also guided tours of the car hall held by Dick Jönsson Wigroth, well-known in the motor business.

Per says:

I have known him for many years. When his name came up I thought I hope, hope, hope he wants to do that. Dick is both an aesthete and a technician and is cut and ready for the job.
And I have spoken to a lot of staff in connection with us building the new Front House. Both Åsa and I want it to feel special to work at the hotel and when many people said that they were proud to be part of this fantastic new building, then of course I’m proud that they are proud!

Today, Hotel Tylösand has 120 employees, which during the summer will multiply to over 400.

Per points out:

We are basically full over summer until August. December is also a party month when we serve over 9,000 Christmas dinners. But it’s not like that in January, February or in October or November. It is during those months that we have to be extra creative and invent things so that, above all, companies will come here. We want to keep our staff even when it’s not peak season.

Pay attention to the details

Even though Per, with the support of co-owner Björn Nordstrand, together with the CEO and the board is responsible for the big brushstrokes, he also, just like Åsa, pays attention to the details.

Yes, every time I’m at Hotel Tylösand I do some check-ups, I won’t say where. But I can, for example, go into a toilet and check that the toilet lid is attached, that there are towels and that it is generally fresh. If there is something crazy, I report it immediately and then it will be fixed right away.
Because it’s important that it’s clean and tidy everywhere. It’s invaluable that the staff learn how we think and that everyone helps to ensure that the guest has a maximum experience. If you pass a pillow that has been sucked down, you lift it up and puff at it. Not everyone sees that because not everyone cares. But exactly that is the key to people saying “I’ve never been to a hotel like that in Sweden!”. We hear that often.
Therefore, it’s also important to get involved for the entire Tylösand area, that it is neat on the beach, safe and inviting, that there are good rescue routes if something were to happen. Everything has to work, because the more we invest, the more people come here.

New projects underway

More to come. In December, the pool project will start when that part will be renovated.

Åsa says:

Then I would like to build a sun roof on top of the spa with a staircase up the side. But also extend the roof over Bettans so you can sit and enjoy and have a drink or coffee. In that case it would be called Bettan’s roof.
So I constantly have new projects and wishes. Then you can see if you get through with them. The board is tough, haha…

To own a hotel of 23,000 square meters is an ongoing process. Or as Per himself puts it:

It’s a bit like washing windows on a skyscraper. You will never be finished. Because when one thing is done, it’s always time for the next.

Photo of Åsa and Per by Linus Kamstedt Lindholm.