Every smaller town has its pride. On the Bjäre Peninsula there are some names that stand out and that have meant a lot to the area and the town for a long time. Although royalty has thrived here and household names have come and gone, there are some that have meant extra over the years. They are Båstad's real celebrities.
Louis Nobel
At the turn of the 1900th century, what we now often associate Båstad with: recreation and bathers started. Louis Nobel, nephew of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, was driving the idea of creating scenic living environments in balance with nature. It came to mean a transformation of Båstad from an unknown town, with small-scale fishing and agriculture as the main industries, to a recreation area with hotels, restaurants, tennis, golf and swimming facilities. He built a number of villas as well as the residential hotel Skånegården. Most are still there. In addition, Nobel built tennis courts and golf courses, which of course characterized Båstad for over a hundred years.
Rudolf Abelin
Rudolf Abelin was a hortologist and pomologist (that is, an apple expert) who laid out Norrviken's gardens over 100 years ago. He was a pioneer in horticulture and laid out style gardens and plantations, but also ran a horticulture school and was a keen lecturer. Norrviken's gardens are today one of the main visitor destinations on the Bjäre Peninsula, and Rudolf Abelin is therefore a name to remember.
Birgit Nilsson
Birgit Nilsson was one of the greatest opera singers of the 1900th century. She was and still is celebrated worldwide for her strong stage presence and fantastic soprano voice. Birgit Nilsson grew up in the middle of Bjäre, in the village of Svenstad. Here the family farm is beautifully nestled between hills and pastures. The farm is today a museum, according to Birgit's wish, where the memories from childhood and the unparalleled opera career are preserved. There is also a statue of Birgit Nilsson near the church in Båstad.
Märta Måås-Fjetterström
Märta Måås-Fjetterström was a textile artist and weaver who worked during the first half of the 1900th century. Her big breakthrough came in 1934 with an exhibition at Liljevalch's art gallery together with, among others, Elsa Gullberg, Carl Malmsten and Svenskt Tenn. But already in 1919 she opened her own weaving atelier on Agardhsgatan in Båstad. This was as a result of her being convinced by major customer Ludvig Nobel, who bought a number of carpets for the new Skånegården, that this was exactly where she should settle down. Märta Måås-Fjetterström employed more than 20 weavers, and after her death in 1941, a company was created that still operates in the same premises. Today, her works can be found in, among other things, Swedish embassies and royal castles, and fetch hundreds of thousands of kroner at auction.
