The real Villa Villekulla, the original house from SVT’s films about Pippi Longstocking (Långstrump), sits in the middle of Kneippbyn Resort. Villa Villekula is an integral part of Kneippbyn and of our visitors’ experience here. The house was moved to where it stands today (in one piece!) in 1970. The films ”Pippi on the seven seas” (2001-2002) and ”Pippi on space” (2015) were filmed at Villa Villekula’s current location here in Sommarland! In 2015, we again renovated Villa Villekulla to recreate the environment from the classic Pippi films.

About Villa Villekulla and Gotland
Villa Villekulla is a turn-of-the-century villa. A date signed by E. Ahlqvist on the stairs indicates that the house was added to or built originally in 1902. The villa was originally used as a manager’s residence with the basement used Gotland Regiment on Visborgsslätt.

During the early part of the 1960s, the villa was home for a short time to music director Åke Dohlin (Hagström 1996: 91) and dentist Bergstedt. The house then become storage for ammunition and underwear for the regiment. In 1968 the villa took on a new life becoming known as Villa Villekula when the first episodes of the Pippi series aired. These episodes were filmed on Gotland!

During the late 1960s, Astrid Lindgren and director Olle Hellbom decided to start filming the Pippi stories. After finding a Pippi and an Annika, they were still missing a Villa Villekulla, a Tommy, a horse and a monkey. In an effort to find something suitable, Hellbom placed a humor-filled ad in Expressen with the headline ”Do you have a house for Pippi Långstrump (Longstocking)?” with an accompanying picture of how they hoped the house would look. The advertisement also includes a requirement that there should be a magnificent tree beside the house and that the house should be in an older residential area. The ad, which was written in a humorous way, ends with ”The house, the horse, Tommy and the monkey can send themselves to Nord Art, Fack, Stockholm 1. Pippi is timeless and we are looking for locations that aesthetically recall the turn of the last century.”

Gotland was chosen partly because the modern traffic signs that had already been installed on the mainland of Sweden hadn’t yet been installed on the island – this gave the surroundings the impression of a bygone era which was important for the films. Only a month before filming was set to begin, Hellbom and photographer Kalle Bergholm came to Gotland for a shrimping trip. As they traveled around the island, they saw the future Villa Villekiula – then still the manager’s home and storage area. They were immediately impressed by the home, with its decorate wood carvings and large garden – it was exactly what they were looking for as Pippi’s place! At the time the house still belonged to the regiment, which at first made filming there impossible. However, a generous offer of 10,000 SEK to General Hjukström won approval for Villa Villekula to become the film home of Pippi and her friends.

Before the filming began, the house was painted colorfully and a porch was added. More decorative wood carvings were added onto the house and shutters were installed at the jaunty angle illustrated in the books. The house’s pinnacles, spiers and chimney were also given the same skewed appearance. For the films, only the exterior of the house was originally used – all indoor scenes were shot in studio settings.

The Pippi series made the old manager’s house famous throughout Sweden. Though it remained deserted and was only used as storage by the military, large numbers of tourists were attracted to Gotland to see the real Villa Villekula! The head of the department of tourism for Gotland saw the positive attention that the island was receiving because of Pippi and her house and began dreaming that one day Villa Villekula could become a play paradise for children and that it could host parties and good times. But the house was still located in a designated military area, which made the villa and the garden a dangerous playground to visit.

At this time, records indicate that house was decaying: large parts of the facade were beginning to rot. Had it not been for the connection to Pippi, the house would have been demolished. (GT 1969) The regiment felt indifferent to Villa Villekulla and planned to have the house remoed: they would get a new storage space and needed to expand their firing range anyway. General Hjukström believed that the Pippi-craze would blow over in a year and that tearing down the house would not be a loss. The plan to destroy the popular attraction caught the attention of the local newspapers and even the evening newspapers on the mainland of Sweden: Aftonbladet’s Sunday newspaper ran an appeal to save Pippi’s house on May 4th, 1969. The house was then put up for auction with a requirement that the buyer must be able to relocate it outside of the military area. Three people engaged in the bidding and the winner was Einar Nyberg from Gotland! Einar was the new owner of the real Villa Villekulla (and was the owner of Kneippbyn!).

Before the move, Nyberg’s crew had to excavate a road for Villa Villekulla to travel down all the way to where it stands now at Kneippbyn. The house was able to be moved in one piece because it still had a strong frame which allowed it to be transported instead of disassembled. A special undercarriage made of iron beams to act as sliders was constructed to facilitate the move.

Villa Villekulla was moved to a place with a history of its own. Kneippbyn (Kneipp Village), which was named after the German priest and health prophet Sebastian Kneipp, was initially designed as a health resort. Sebastian Kneipp was known for curing his tuberculosis through taking cold baths, barefoot walks, and lots of fresh air (among other lifestyle benefits). Dr. Karl Kallenberg, who bought the land south of Visby in 1907 intended to create a place inspired by Sebastian Kneipp’s treatment methods – he therefor named his vision Kneippbyn. In the winter of 1969, Villa Villekulla was bought at auction and moved by Einar Nyberg to Kneippbyn. The acquisition of the house fit in with the developments that had taken place in Kneippbyn over several decades: in the 70’s Kneippbyn had become a place for leisure and family and vacations.
Once in place, visitors could come and see Villa Villekula more safely and enjoy a “sugar drink” from the “sugar drink tree”. The Kneippbyn staff would press a button and “sugar drink” would flow directly from the tree into a child’s waiting glass – each cup was 50 öre.
Kneippbyn has continued to evolve and the 80’s brought Kneippbyn’s next big change. Water slides were built to expand the park and the focus for Villa Villekula was to restore the interior and recreate the film’s settings in the house as it had looked during the studio filming. A lot of time, care, and energy has gone into this work and even included finding authentic items used during the filming!