Brevik
Brevik is a town on the west coast of the Oslo Fjord. In the 1700s it was a busy market town with 1,000 inhabitants. The trading consisted mainly of lumber exports to Holland, and many people earned a living working in the business. In the 1780s-90s the town boasted of six lumber exporters, four merchants with clerks, one assistant pastor, two smiths, four cobblers, three tailors, one wig maker and one goldsmith. The international trade necessitated one customs official and one clerk. Two inns housed visitors.
Townhouse, Brevik, 1761
The house was built after a fire destroyed much of Brevik. The many outbuildings - servants quarters, wash house, woodshed with cellar, stable, cow barn, and hay barn - and the house were built in a square around a central courtyard. The original red vertical panel remains on the courtyard facade. The panel and paint on the front of the house dates from the beginning of the 1800s.
The house has nine rooms and a kitchen. There is one large and two small rooms on the second floor. The furnishings are based on estate and auction records from the property in the 1700s. Across the street in front of the house were the wharf and warehouses which belonged to the property.
The special front facing "U" plan is probably modeled after Borgestad near Porsgrunn, which is in turn influenced by Ulrik Fredrik Gyldenløves residence in Larvik. The houses were said to be built in "Italian style." The brothers Hans and Jørgen Chrystie built two such houses in Brevik.