About Us

In 1898, lumber merchant Gabriel Block Watne had 17 mål of land set aside from his parents’ farm at Vatne and built the country house that is now the Kronen Gaard Hotel. Gabriel was in the lumber business and traveled to America to study what they called “pre-cut”—prefabricated building kits cut at the factory that were then assembled on-site.

Gabriel and Beate Block Watne were known for their sociability. They had six children and spent the entire summer at their country home. The trip from the family’s residence on Langgaten to Vatne took about half an hour. Unfortunately, hard times set in, and the Block Watnes sold the property around 1920.
The Austrian Frans Salerius Faydt then purchased the property. He and a friend arrived in Norway in 1911. They had just finished their education and fled their homeland out of fear of being drafted into military service. Faydt was then a master weaver at the Sandnes Woolen Mill. He and his wife had two daughters, but unfortunately his wife died in childbirth. Faydt then married the housekeeper but died shortly thereafter. The housekeeper then sold the property, placed the two young girls in foster care, and moved back to her hometown of Haugesund.

One of the girls was placed with the butcher Nygård in Sandnes, and the other with her mother’s family in Ålgård.

The property was sold to Head Nurse Gudrun Baade Jensen, who was then working at Dale Psychiatric Hospital. The idealistic head nurse continued to run the farm as a home for elderly women with mental illnesses. The rural surroundings at Vatne were the perfect setting for relaxation and rehabilitation.

In 1953, Kjell and Sygni Steinsvåg purchased the property; she was a newly ordained parish nurse, and he was a newly ordained deacon at the time. They continued to run the facility privately. At that time, the place was called “Trødne.” The name “Trødene” originates from the fact that the area was very marshy and there were several springs in the fields. When it rained, there was a patch of dry ground on higher ground where the animals would go to trample the mud, hence the name “Trødene.”

In the 1980s, Rogaland County leased the psychiatric farm to operate it as a psychiatric nursing home. In 1986, Kronen Gaard Hotel opened, marking the end of its operation as a psychiatric institution. Kjell and Sygni were the ones who started the hotel; they renovated the building, opened its doors, and the festive atmosphere took over once again.Until 1993, the hotel was operated as an alcohol-free establishment, which proved difficult in the late 1980s when champagne corks were popping everywhere and we were in the midst of the well-known “yuppie era.”

In 1993, their son Helmer Steinsvåg became the new owner of Kronen Gaard; the hotel was then granted a liquor license, and a new era began.