A window on adventure

Young Thor had a spectacular and panoramic view from his bedroom window on the top floor on Steinbakken. In his own words: “The house was on a steep hill and I was three floors up on the side facing the sea looking over red tiled roofs all the way down to the long quay and further out towards open sea. The journey continued south when I went back to bed. If I was lucky, I continued to dream when I was asleep”. He was not the only one in the town beneath the beech trees to experience this. Many young boys and girls have felt the draw of the Larvik Fjord. They have gazed at the roofs, the chimneys and church spires down to the two quays in the Inner Harbour, which continues to point towards the big wide world, and allowed their dreams to take them out over the Skagerrak to adventures beyond Svenner and Stavernsøya. Today, the huge pear tree you can see obscures the view down to the quays and the fjord. The seafarer was very disappointed to see this when he was finally able to come back to his childhood home on the 31st of August 1997 for his first and only visit after he left the town in the 1930’s. He was there to film a Japanese documentary. “My childhood home has been totally changed. It is not my home”, he commented to the local newspaper. He did, however, spend the most important years of his life in this house. The years from birth to puberty and young adulthood are formative in everyone’s life and the seafarer never denied that he was privileged to have grown up in Larvik. Quoting Heyerdahl: “It was the ideal environment to grow up in. Nearly everyone had backyards which served as playgrounds and fruit gardens with fences to climb. The forests and beaches provided unlimited to space to knock about in where the cobbled streets ended. (…) Up in Steinbakken, where I lived, it only took three minutes to run to the Byskogen Forest. (…) My childhood heaven was made up of a lot of other things as well: Farrisvannet Lake, The Beech Forest, the fjord, Stavern – beaches where we collected shells and starfish.” Steingata nr. 7 itself was most likely built in the 1790’s during the period after the devastating fire of the 17th of June 1792, which destroyed many of the buildings in Storgata and in “The Stones”, as the area was called. The name comes from the extensive stone deposits which occur in the moraine forming the ground here. In spite of the fact that the houses were smaller and the inhabitants poorer than in the impressive properties along Storgata, the Steinane area belonged to the town proper in the 1700’s, unlike the areas of Langestrand and Torstrand at that time. It was mainly populated by workers, craftsmen and seamen. In the early 1800’s, Steingata 7 is said to be one of the most expensive properties in the area and the house is a good example of better homes built in the 1700’s. It occupied a relatively large area compared with neighbouring properties, had a large balcony garden with an outhouse on two floors with small, square glass windows and gables facing the sea. The main house looks very much as it did when Thor grew up here, but without the wild boar which decorated the façade. Thor Senior had the steps built. The house has had many owners over the years, both merchants, ship’s captains and pilots. The first Brunlanes Bank was located here around 1875. The man in charge must have been an enterprising soul as he also started up a brewery on the property. The operation was sold to a consortium from Tønsberg under the name of “Vestfold Brewery” in 1882 and was in turn purchased by citizens of Larvik and Thor Heyerdahl of Kristiania was employed as manager in 1891. Two years later, in 1893, he moved into the property on the steep hill under the beech trees.