Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
There are hotels that pretend to be pyramids, pirate ships, fishing villages and igloos. So it's not surprising that someone has come up with a hotel that emulates a prison. Indeed, the Langholmen Hotel, located on an island in the centre of Stockholm, has been open since 1986 after a 250-year run as Kronohaktet Prison, which housed some of Sweden's most notorious criminals, including the last murderer executed in Sweden, in 1910.
What is surprising is that Langholmen is so substantial.
This is not a couple of cells in a tiny town masquerading as a bed and breakfast. It's 102 rooms (including 10 for handicapped guests) constructed from 200 prison cells, as well as a separate youth hostel, a conference centre, a museum and four restaurants, including one in the Spinhusset, the basement where female prisoners were forced to spend their days at spinning wheels.
Langholmen's charm owes as much to penal reform as it does to its marketing proposition. During the mid-1800s, U.S. prisons began to be built on the "Philadelphia model," which radically reversed the traditional philosophy of herding prisoners together in a dark cell. Instead, the new thinking gave prisoners some room, plenty of light and a place and time for exercise. The Swedes, as avant-garde socially then as now, emulated the Philadelphia model at Kronohaktet, with its individual cells, bright central atrium and pie-shaped exercise yards fanning out from a central guard tower. The result is a remarkably airy and expansive series of three wings of rooms, all bathed in sunlight.
Rooms
That said, the rooms are by no means expansive; the doors are updates of the original tiny cell doors, which means getting a large suitcase inside takes some twisting and turning. But once in, you're no less comfy than in most European three-star rooms. In fact, the duvet-covered beds are luxurious and the bathrooms in the single accommodations are bigger than the rooms themselves. The single cells can hold two people, and the doubles, four, with the use of Murphy beds that pull out of the wall above the main beds, and that are covered in wallpaper taken from old Stockholm newspaper accounts of prisoners' crimes and trials.
Ambiance
Just in case you start to enjoy your stay too much, each room comes equipped with a copy of the inmate's daily routine, which has reveille at 5:45 a.m. and bedtime at 7:45 p.m. Of course, it would be a complete waste of a prison theme if there were no murder-mystery evenings, which Langholmen has aplenty. But they take theming one step further by offering conference centre guests the opportunity to use all their wiles and teamwork to "escape" over the prison walls to freedom -- sort of an ultimate Outward Bound-style trip.
Staff
While they must have answered every question a thousand times: "Yes, the four clocks behind the desk are set to the exact time at Sing Sing (New York), Alcatraz (California), Robben Island (South Africa) and Port Arthur (Tasmania)," and "Yes, I'd be happy to take your picture 'escaping' from your cell," the staff are polite, helpful and young -- almost what you'd expect at a hostel. This is not surprising, because there is one on the property where you can bunk in with your sleeping bag during the summer for a cheap and cheerful $30 a night.
Food and drink
Langholmen has four places to eat: a pub called The Nick, which serves basic grub; a patio café where you can play boules in the old exercise yard; a wine cellar that used to be the solitary-confinement cells and now serves candlelit meals; and the Langholmen Restaurant, housed in the Alstavik residence, which was built in the 1670s for a wealthy brewer and is now one of Stockholm's finest restaurants, with a traditional Swedish buffet served year-round.
Things to do
If you're into the history of detention, Langholmen has a museum that chronicles 300 years of Swedish prison history, including a menu of services offered by the prison staff in 1736. The executioner would be paid by the state to chop off one hand or both ears for 2 dalers, while a beheading would run you 5.
Clientele
It's all over the map -- and from all over the map -- executives attending seminars in the conference centre; university students and elderhostelers enjoying the hostel; and curious visitors from what seems all age groups, tastes and incomes enjoying the prospect of sleeping in a prison and finding that, even without all the penitentiary paraphernalia, it's quite a lovely hotel nonetheless. In fact, Langholmen is billed as "the Green island in the centre of Stockholm" with beautiful parks and picnic areas, and is only a 15-minute walk from the Royal Palace and the other attractions of the old city.
But what was most gratifying about Langholmen was not being a prisoner for a night, but paying so reasonably for a weekend. A single room on a weekend is $120 a night, while a double is $166 -- just one of many reasons Langholmen enjoys an 85-per-cent occupancy rate.
Information
Langholmen Hotel & Conference Centre: Langholmsmuren 20, Box 9116, 102 72 Stockholm, Sweden; phone: 46 (8) 668 0500; fax: 46 (8) 720 8575; e-mail: hotell@langholmen.com; Web site:
http://www.langholmen.com.
