Herregaard's rooms
There are 13 historic rooms in the main building, all named after personalities associated with Fuglsang during Bodil and Rolf Viggo de Neergaard's time.
Each room is more than just a place to stay; they are unique experiences in themselves. The decor includes original furniture from Neergaard's time at Fuglsang, complemented by colourful wallpapers and carefully selected details that give each room its own character. The rooms vary in size and style and are available in three categories: Superior, Standard, and Small Cosy.
All rooms are designed with comfort and functionality in mind. They have a seating area, a writing space, and clothes storage options - either as a walk-in closet or a simpler solution with hooks and hangers. In 2019, all rooms were upgraded with new bathrooms, so everyone now has their own toilet and shower.
The rooms are located on the 1st floor with lift access to all floors. One of the rooms is specially designed as disabled-friendly to ensure that everyone can have a pleasant experience.
Bolette Puggaard's room
Bolette Puggaard (1844-1929), Bodil de Neergaard's mother, was from the famous Puggaard family of merchants. She married the composer Emil Hartmann on 4 November 1864. Hans Christian Andersen wrote a song for their wedding (”I Sangen lyde Hjerteslag”). The poet was also Bodil's godfather at her baptism.
Anne Marie Telmányi room
Anne Marie Frederikke Telmányi, née Nielsen (4 March 1893 in Copenhagen - 17 April 1983 in Hørsholm) was a Danish painter, daughter of the two great artistic personalities, composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) and sculptor Anne Marie Carl Nielsen née Brodersen (1863-1945).
Her childhood home was the scholarship house in Frederiksholms Kanal, and it formed the setting for an artistic environment where many of the great cultural personalities of the time lived. She has since written several books about her time here and her family.
When her father Carl Nielsen or Julius Röntgen or other musical personalities were at Fuglsang, the evenings were always associated with one inspiring concert after another. In Anne Marie Telmanyi's memoirs about her parents, the concerts at Fuglsang are described as unique.
In the room you can see a watercolour: “Mrs Neergaard with the dogs” and “Study of oak tree by Skejten, Fuglsang” by Anne Marie Telmanyi.
Martin Hammerich's room
Martin Johannes Hammerich (4 December 1811 in Copenhagen - 20 September 1881 in Iselingen) was a Danish schoolman and author, father of Holger Hammerich.
In addition to theology, in which he graduated in 1833, he cultivated mythological and philological studies, including Sanskrit, and in 1830 he was awarded an accessit for his answer to the University's prize question on the conditions of the freedmen in Rome's period of freedom. 1831-34 he worked as a teacher at Borgerdydskolen, and in 1836 he received his master's degree with his thesis Om Ragnaroksmythen og dens Betydning i den oldnordiske Religion.
By the mythological standards of the time, it is a good and thorough work, which, like all Hammerich's later writings, is characterised by spiritual perception and beautiful, meticulous presentation. It is of particular interest as the first dissertation to be written in Danish, as Hammerich in his application strongly emphasised the unreasonableness of demanding that a subject of Norse mythology be treated in Latin.
It is indicative of the love for his homeland and mother tongue, which always animated Hammerich, that from the very beginning of his career he fought for a new area for the Danish language at the university, although a general licence to use it in dissertations was not granted until 1854, while the oral document was not required to be in Danish until 1866.
In the room is a portrait of Martin Hammerich, gouache on paper, by F.C.Camradt, ca.1836.
Rolf Viggo De Neergaard's room
The room is named after the master builder Rolf Viggo De Neergaard (1837-1915), who inherited Fuglsang and Priorskov from his parents at the age of 29. A few years after taking over, he demolished the old main building as it was full of rot and mould. In its place, he built the Fuglsang we see today in the Dutch Renaissance style. Rolf Viggo De Neergaard was not only an estate owner, but also a man interested in photography, homeopathy, astrology, music and art. In 1885, he married Ellen Bodil Hartmann, 30 years his junior, granddaughter of I.P.E. Hartmann. The couple had a happy marriage until Rolf Viggo De Neergaard's death in 1915. The couple had no children, but devoted themselves to music and art and created a natural centre for this at Fuglsang.
Olaf Rude's room
Olaf Rude's room is named after the painter Olaf Rude (1886-1957). Olaf Rude's parents had a farm close to Fuglsang, and he was attached to his childhood neighbourhood all his life, even though he lived and worked on Bornholm.
Olaf Rude was one of the early Danish modernists, now the classical modernists, who focused on the formal means of painting, form, surface, line and colour at the expense of naturalistic representation. He was a great colourist. Olaf Rude's main work is the large paintings from Skejten, which decorate the parliamentary hall at Christiansborg. Fuglsang Art Museum has a fine collection of Rude's paintings.
Carl Nielsen's room
Carl August Nielsen (9 June 1865 in Sortelung, Nørre Lyndelse, on Funen - 3 October 1931 in Copenhagen) was a Danish composer and conductor. He wrote six symphonies, three concertos for violin, flute, clarinet and orchestra, two operas, six string quartets and other chamber music as well as hundreds of songs and other vocal works.
From 1905, Carl Nielsen and his wife, sculptor Anne Marie Carl Nielsen, began spending holidays with the de Neergaard family. Often during his stays, Carl Nielsen would sit and work on music for extended periods, and on such occasions he was installed in the gardener's cottage, where he worked on the music for ”Herr Oluf han rider”.
When Carl Nielsen or Julius Röntgen or other musical personalities stayed at Fuglsang, the evenings were always associated with one inspiring concert after another. Carl Nielsen was accompanied by his son-in-law Emil Telmanyi. It is said that when he stood in the hall and played Bach for solo violin, it was only the music that lived in the room, and only the music that occupied everyone. In Anne Marie Telmanyi's memoirs about her parents, the concerts at Fuglsang are described as something quite unique.
Julius Röntgen's room
Julius Engelbert Röntgen (9 May 1855 - 13 September 1932) was a German-Dutch classical composer.
Julius Röntgen was born in Leipzig, Germany, into a family of musicians. He was a talented child and neither he nor his siblings attended school; his parents and grandparents taught him music and other subjects.
In 1870, at the age of 14, Röntgen visited Franz Liszt in Weimar; and after playing piano for him, he was invited to dinner at Liszt's home. At the age of 18, Röntgen became a professional pianist, and during a concert tour in southern Germany he met Swedish music student Amanda Maier, whom he married in 1880.
In 1877, Röntgen had to make a decision whether to travel to Vienna or Amsterdam. He chose Amsterdam and became a teacher at a music school. In Amsterdam he played an important role in establishing institutions for classical music and in 1883 he helped found the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music.
Röntgen and his family spent many summers in Denmark. On one of these holidays he met Bodil de Neergaard, with whom he formed a close friendship.
Niels Viggo Bentzon's room
Niels Viggo Bentzon (24 August 1919 in Copenhagen - 25 April 2000) was a Danish composer, pianist and organist.
Bentzon's parents were professor, dr.jur. Viggo Bentzon and pianist Karen Emma Bentzon née Hartmann. He was thus J.P.E. Hartmann's great-grandson and cousin to composer Jørgen Bentzon, author Inger Bentzon and flutist Johan Bentzon. He was educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1941. Danish Academy of Music in 1941 as a student of Knud Jeppesen and Leo Mathisen, among others, and graduated as an organist in 1942. He received the Ancker Scholarship in 1947.
In the last years of Bodil Neergaard's life, Niels Viggo Bentzon visited Fuglsang and gave family and guests unusual musical experiences.
Bodil de Neergaard's room
In 1885, Viggo de Neergaard married Bodil Hartmann, daughter of composer Emil Hartmann and granddaughter of I.P.E. Hartmann. At the time of the marriage, Bodil Hartmann was just 18 years old, while Viggo de Neergaard was 48 and had owned Fuglsang for 19 years. Despite the large age difference, it was a happy marriage to the delight not only of the entire estate and its employees, but of the large circle of family and friends who visited Fuglsang year after year.
In the spring of 1915, Viggo de Neergaard died and Bodil de Neergaard was widowed at Fuglsang for 44 years. With the task of hostess and sole responsibility for the entire estate, she grew into a great personality who is still remembered by younger family members and friends. She created a hospitable home filled with music and good conversation.
Not only were the many people who visited Fuglsang interested in Bodil de Neergaard, but also the most disadvantaged in society, to whom she devoted much of her life.
Oluf Hartmann's room
Oluf Hartmann's room is named after the painter Oluf Hartmann (1879-1910), Bodil de Neergaard's brother. Oluf Hartmann was considered one of the brightest hopes of Danish art at the time, but his name was forgotten. Only in recent years has there been renewed interest in Oluf Hartmann and his art.
He made large-scale paintings, but also some smaller nature studies with the low coastal landscape from Skejten during his stays with his sister at Fuglsang. This is perhaps where he met another painter of the same age, Olaf Rude. Hartmann is well represented at the Fuglsang Art Museum, and Fuglsang Manor has one of his works. Upon his death at a young age, Carl Nielsen wrote ”Ved en ung Kunstners Baare”.
Three of his paintings have been purchased and now hang in his room at Fuglsang. They are ”Ixion”, ”Two Men Fighting” and ”Daedalus”.
Edvard Grieg's room
Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 - 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is one of the few Nordic composers to achieve worldwide fame.
Among his most famous compositions are the music for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and his only piano concerto in A minor (opus 16). The latter was not widely recognised among the art and music elite when it was first released in 1868, but quickly achieved great “commercial” and popular success, especially in the USA.
World-famous pianist Artur Rubinstein has said in an interview how he, like most people in the early 1900s, did not consider this concerto important, but changed his mind after a dinner with composer Sergei Rachmaninov, who praised it as probably the best piano concerto ever written. The A minor concerto was premiered in Copenhagen, specifically in the great hall of the Casino theatre. Grieg donated the proceeds to the Unitarian House in Østerbro.
Edvard Grieg was also one of the composers who visited Fuglsang, and after his death in 1907, his wife Nina continued to come.
Lola Artot De Padilla
The room is named after the German/French/Spanish opera singer Lola Artot De Padilla (1876-1933) whom Mrs Neergaard met in Paris during one of her visits where she took singing lessons several times. In 1905 she appeared in guest roles in Copenhagen and Stockholm. From 1905 to 1908 she worked at the Komische Opera in Berlin where she also sang the role of Vreli (Juliet) in the opera A village Romeo and Juliet by Frederick Delius. She was then part of the troupe of the Berliner Hofoper. She also sang throughout Western Europe. She also taught, Rose Olitzka was one of her students. Lola was also a frequent guest at Fuglsang Herregaard, both alone and with her daughters. Here they were part of the artistic community and performed in the house music room with other guests.
Axel Wørmer's room
Axel Wørmer (1846-1878) was a Danish decorative painter. Axel Wørmer painted the Pompeian decoration in Hilker's style of the billiard room in 1873. He was probably helped by Joakim Skovgaard with the execution of the frieze of playing children.
The decorations at Fuglsang are considered Wørmer's masterpiece. His confident figural style and light colouring is evident with putti in a mixture of light Danish and dark Italian sea and land genii, playing in classic Italian and gentle Lolland shores. In its sweetness, this decoration is far from the original, strict Pompeian style and adapted to the Victorian flavour of historicism.