Page 47 - Hotel Tunnel's 100 Years of History

property, referred to as a "court" in official documents, whose mainte- nance incurred significant expenses. Despite being rented as the gover- nor's residence, the property was not a profitable venture for the Haghen heirs. It required costly maintenance every year and it seems that the rental income barely covered the significant repair costs. In 1699, when Rehnskold was governor, the Haghen heirs, through their agent Gerhard von Schwindern, sought to have the property purchased by the Royal Court and Crown. For this purpose, von Schwindern submitted a writ- ten request to the King and the Crown, offering to sell the property for the sum of 5,000 riksdaler. However, the request was not granted.
However, Gerhard von Schwindern died shortly thereafter; and since the Gyllenpalmska property located near the main square, after in- spection and evaluation in 1708, was taken by the crown to pay off a significant debt in Gyllenpalms's estate, the aforementioned project to combine the two properties owned by the crown was likely to be rea- lized soon; and it seems that the Haghen heirs then found it necessary
to get rid of the expensive property as soon as possible. However, it was difficult to find a capable buyer who could pay the high price set for the property and make use of it in an appropriate way. Finally, a suitable buyer was found in the form of merchant and commissioner Erasmus Clefwe, who conducted a significant trade and had business connections with major trading houses in Stockholm. On May 29, 1717, the Haghen and Schwindern heirs sold the governor's mansion/now Mayfair Hotel Tunneln, but Erasmus only held the property for six years. Through a transfer of his own purchase contract on May 23, 1722, he sold the pro- perty to the governor, Baron Karl Gustav Hardh, for 6,000 daler in silver. Only after he became a member of the Riksdag in 1727, did he acquire the property and make it his own. The first public auction was announ- ced on August 14 of the same year, at the request of Hardh's wife, "Riks Radskan and Baroness" Anna Charlotta Lovisa Fahlstrom, who handled this matter while her husband was in Stockholm, with the appropriate documents. After the second and third auctions were granted to Karl Gustav Hardh on August 21 and 28, respectively, the merchant Frans Suell, as a neighbor and owner of the adjacent property number 354 on the corner of Kyrko and Kansligatan, on August 30, in a letter to the city council, claimed the right to redeem the old Guvernorsgarden/Mayfari Hotel Tunneln, offering 2,000 daler in coin, which he had agreed to with Hardh and his agent Michael Hansson Cronholm, or whatever purcha- se price had been given along with the additional costs that Hardh had incurred for the property's repairs during his time there.
After the Hardh family moved to Stockholm, the old governor's house fell into disrepair by 1728, when Governor Cronman, who had been li-
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