I Own a $150

Mar 25, 2023

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Håvard Lund, an Airbnb owner in Gildeskål, Nordland, Norway. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Years ago, I had the idea to create a rentable, collaborative space for artists. I never intended to put it on Airbnb, but here we are.

My Airbnb is in Norway, and it's a tiny village built out of tiny houses that can house a group while immersing them in nature. As a musician and composer, I found early in my life that I could benefit from multi-disciplinary meetings.

I saw how my work could gain speed and become more interesting by hanging out with engineers and architects — all kinds of people, really. This village was intended to facilitate those kinds of meetings.

It's the nature I know, so it was easy to pick this location. Typically, to build or buy an estate in this archipelago, it helps to have a relationship with a seller, so it was six years before I bought the first estate.

I met with three building teams before deciding to move forward with the third one, as the first two thought the challenges for what I had in mind would be too big. I started building with my team in 2014, and we opened for rentals in 2016.

From there, it was the architects who suggested the design. They came up with the idea of a tiny village with all the functions of a normal house, but cut into several houses. I just said, "Hooray, let's make it."

The village works because it's pushing guests out into nature. People breathe differently and see natural phenomena that they won't see if they're indoors. Guests can see birds, sea otters, and the Northern Lights here.

I chose materials that are meant to last forever, but because of the weather here, maintenance will come. It's amazing how much damage water can do.

Two of the six years we've been open have been during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it's been slow. My guess is that building a business on an island — basically on the North Pole — will take double the amount of time as building a business on the mainland. So, we go very slowly in everything that we do.

During the pandemic, I decided to make a profile on Airbnb to share the story of the arctic hideaway and give people a place to book it.

It's been a relief to have bookings through Airbnb, but I'm afraid of the level of expectations guests have. If guests come to visit a remote island in the Arctic without shops and cars, they need to know that they can handle it.

Despite my in-depth description on Airbnb, I still have bookings from people who don't read one word and just see the pictures and come. This can lead to bad reviews.

If guests want designs on their decaf lattes, they should stay at home. This is black coffee, rock 'n' roll.

The prices are fair for the experience, but I do have a minimum stay of three nights. That's in order for it to be more sustainable for people to come here.

I also control the number of bookings available on Airbnb, so if a large cohort needs to come, I have the availability.

I've found Airbnb brings American culture, which I'm not familiar with as a Northern European guy. More and more Americans are coming back, but it's still mostly Europeans.

I'm here between May and September, and everyone who works as a caretaker or host at the village needs to develop their role here. I'm also building my skills as a host, leader, and person.

Since opening, the meetings here have been incredible — with artists of all kinds being able to collaborate in this space.

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.

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