Mlardrottningen: the Stockholm yacht hotel once owned by American socialite Barbara Hutton
What is it? That depends on the end at which you’re standing: the prow bears the name Mälardrottningen, but the stern says it’s the Lady Hutton. Either way, this is what used to be the world’s largest motor yacht – a vessel that revels in a big celebrity history and no little mystery.
Not that she actually sails anywhere these days: after almost a century of service, she reposes at anchor on the western flank of Riddarholmen, a small island in central Stockholm that abuts Gamla Stan, the Swedish capital’s spectacularly preserved medieval city centre. Mälardrottningen (meaning “the queen of Lake Mälaren”) is an old term for Stockholm and it is this name that’s used in connection with the vessel’s role as a hotel.Hotel? Correct: the Mälardrottningen is a three-star property that offers 61 cabins of 65 square feet or a relatively spacious 86 square feet. Each size is available as a double or single, the former coming with bunk beds if you prefer an added nautical touch and regular beds if you don’t. Fittingly, plenty of timber is used throughout – which may be a secondary reason for the no-smoking policy. Every cabin has a bathroom with shower, free Wi-fi, cable television and air conditioning.
Amidships can be found a sauna, and a bar and lounge with a glass panel in the deck for those who like to gaze at large (redundant) diesel engines. The yacht’s foredeck is now mainly an enclosed restaurant and bar, although outdoor promenades can still be undertaken along both gunwales.
What do we do for fun? The yacht’s portholes face the Middle Ages immediately to starboard, while to port lie open water and the Södermalm district, full of cafes and vintage stores and with an arty vibe. If your visit is short, you are likely to find most of what takes your fancy within ambling distance of the boat, beginning with Riddarholm Church, to starboard, built in the late 1200s and the burial place of Swedish monarchs. It’s also Stockholm’s last remaining medieval abbey.If you are a museum freak – so to speak – then Mälardrottningen’s neighbourhood will be your intellectual and philosophical Disneyland. No fewer than eight museums stand from 400 metres to a kilometre distant, among them the Nobel Museum, Moderna Museet, Museum of Medieval Stockholm and Dance Museum – plus the Royal Palace, incorporating another five museums of its own.
A stroll around Gamla Stan will reveal it to be a venerable enclave of cupolas and spires, particularly those topping out the likes of Stockholm Cathedral (Gothic in style) and the German Church (baroque and Gothic revival). Wandering through Gamla Stan’s labyrinth of cobbled lanes, chancing upon bars, cafes and market squares – particularly Stortorget, with its multi-hued town houses borrowed from a Scandinavian fairy tale – is one of Stockholm’s most satisfying diversions.
You promised celebrity, history, mystery … Ferries serving Stockholm’s 14 islands zip back and forth in the vicinity of our yacht. None, however, can match the provenance of the 73-metre, steel-hulled vessel built in Germany in 1924. The Lady Hutton in question here is Barbara Hutton, 1930s American socialite and heiress to the Woolworth riches.
Hutton, deeply troubled and later oft-married (to Cary Grant, at one point) was given the boat by her father as an 18th birthday present. It became part of Britain’s Royal Navy during the second world war, after which it somehow found its way to Norway – via Panama. Having bought it and saved it from the scrapyard, a group of Swedish businessmen undertook the Lady Hutton’s hotel refit in 1982.
What’s the bottom line? A standard double cabin (without bunk beds) costs from 760 krona (HK$620) a night, including breakfast.
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