The first I heard of Solvang, California was a couple of years ago, when a street-corner scene with windmill appeared as the Picture of the Day on TravelGumbo.
It was only later that I realized that while the scene was unusual for the U.S., it was actually typical for Solvang. So I wasn’t surprised when I found myself there on a California road trip, booked into a motel called Hamlet on a street full of faux-Danish storefronts.
The surprise came when I found bits of the town’s history on signs and later in web searches: The Danish look was not random. The town had been founded early in the 20th century by three Danes who wanted to create a town where Danish immigrants could hold onto their Danish culture and language. There was another surprise, too…but that’s for a bit later.
The founders, in 1911, where downtown Solvang is today.
The three founders bought about 8,000 acres in the Santa Ynez Valley, next door to an old Spanish mission, and started selling lots. Eventually they turned back 3,000 acres; they had limited their market by selling only to Danes, most of them farmers. The funds from sale of the lots went to start a Danish folk school, which children attended after regular schooling ended at 14, and where folk traditions, dances and philosophy were the focus.
At the Folk School in 1914 (above) and folk dance class (1940s)
The school, which lasted into the 1950s, also served as the community’s church until it could afford to build one, Bethania Lutheran, in the 1920s. When it did, it built what it knew: a faithful copy of 12th-to-14th century rural churches they had known in Denmark.
Second surprise: It was only after the church was built, opening in 1929, that the first little bits of Danish folk architecture started to appear in the village. Up to that time, most of the homes and stores in Solvang were what might be called ‘non-descript,’ no different from other nearby towns.
Copenhagen Square, 1947, was the first major ‘built-to-be-Danish’ project
What Bethania Church started became a wave by late in the Depression of the 1930s when it became clear that there were few job opportunities for young folk in the town or nearby fields, but that ‘quaint’ could mean tourists arriving.
New buildings were designed to look at least sort of Danish, and half-timber construction became very popular. Well, sort of half-timber. That kind of construction is expensive, and requires skilled craftsmen. And, it doesn’t hold up well in California’s cycle of wet-and-dry weather.
Most of Solvang’s timbers are either thin strips of wood glued into stucco or are actually molded stucco stained to look like wood. Another illusion shattered.
By 1939, the town was Danish enough still in culture to rate a visit by the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark, which drew plenty of press and led to more styling of buildings. In 1947, the town was featured in the Saturday Evening Post, and there was no turning back.
Crown Princess Margareth in Solvang, 1960. In 1976 she returned as Queen
Aside from the regular homes and shops of any town, the Danishizers of Solvang have also provided a variety of landmarks copied from Danish originals. Copenhagen’s famous Round Tower is there, as is the needle-like King Christian Tower. A seeming church, with carillon mounted outside, is actually an art sale gallery.
And, of course, when style rather than function becomes the key, there must be excesses here and there. Here a waterwheel pasted onto a wall nowhere near water, for example. There what appears to be a ‘folk-ish’ birdhouse but actually conceals security equipment.
But it’s also a pleasant town to stroll around, with a weekly outdoor market and a seemingly endless supply of bakeries pumping out coffee and quite decent pastries (including the sorts we Americans call ‘Danish pastries’ and the Danes call Wienerbrod, or ‘Viennese breads.”)
There’s also a museum dedicated to Hans Christian Andersen, and another, the Elverhoj, to the history of the town and of Danes in America.
So, we’re left with a question. Is it real, or is it Disney? Guidebooks and websites tend to be a bit patronizing or dismissive of the look. But, under the false facades and the kitsch, there’s still a sizable Danish-American community, perhaps as much as 50%, and looking at local publications and signs in windows, quite a few civic and cultural organizations.
So, if we can forgive half of California for fake Mission architecture, and we can admire towns in Europe that jealously guard the appearance of their historic centers, why not just let Solvang be Solvang? The Danish Capital of America?
PS…the title photo isn’t a real quaint street. It’s Solvang to the core: A motel disguised as a street disguised as Denmark.
