Hardanger Fjord

Hardanger Fjord's shores supported landed estates as well as farming communities. At Rosendal, Karen Mowat and Ludvig Rosenkrantz received the Hatteberg farm as a wedding gift in 1658. They built a stone manor there, giving the estate its Rosendal name. The house and its surrounding lands brought aristocratic residence into the fjord landscape, alongside the farms and woodland on which landed wealth depended.

The property passed through several members of the Rosenkrantz family. In 1745 Edvard Londemann af Rosencrone purchased it; shortly before his death he converted it into an entailed estate. His son later secured its transformation into a barony. Rosendal's succession illustrates how inheritance, marriage and royal recognition helped organise property on this part of the fjord during the Danish-Norwegian monarchy.