2021
In the autumn of 2021, the Halborg-Bendtsen family takes over Melsted Seaside Hotel with a vision to create a locally rooted and tradition-rich seaside hotel, based on the area's natural surroundings, history, and local environment in and around Gudhjem.
Against this backdrop, local hospitality is introduced with a new hotel manager from Bornholm, Ajaja Kofoed-Nørgaard, and the physical premises at Melsted Seaside Hotel are further developed in the classic seaside hotel style, respecting the hotel's fundamental DNA and spirit of the times. One of the era's best interior designers, Josephine Malling, is creating the Seaside Hotel's renewed design line, which beautifully balances the classic seaside hotel with the Nordic minimalism characteristic of the hotel's founding years in the 1930s.
2018
Bornholm businessman Michael Almeborg buys Melsted Seaside Hotel and carries out a series of renovation projects that upgrade the exterior. These include new terraces for the seaside hotel, new roofs on three of the buildings, as well as new windows and doors in the restaurant in the main building.
The married couple Steen Berthelsen and Camilla Faaborg-Andersen lease the Seaside Hotel and continue to operate it according to the "quiet luxury" concept from previous years, in a cozy and informal atmosphere. With over 40 years of experience in the restaurant industry, Steen Berthelsen succeeds in elevating the culinary experiences in the restaurant to new heights.
2000
The Hjorth Madsen family buys Melsted Seaside Hotel, and Lise Hjorth Madsen invests immense energy and effort into the place over the next 18 years. She dreams of creating a small, charming hotel and got the idea for her new life's work when she lived in Southern England and fell in love with the charming small seaside hotels on the English south coast. She initiates an interior renovation and modernization of the hotel in classic New England style, featuring beautiful classic textiles, delicate small French lamps, luxury beds, and romantic antiques.
She laid the foundation for the idyllic and peaceful Melsted Seaside Hotel we know today, driven by her fervent desire to preserve the peace and tranquility experienced here at the water's edge. She called the hotel “The little hotel with a voice full of care.”
Melsted Seaside Hotel also receives a significant culinary boost, and Lise Hjort Madsen thereby helps strengthen Bornholm's food culture. She truly puts Melsted Seaside Hotel on the gastronomic map through a collaboration with Erwin Lauterbach and two of his Saison chefs, Frederik Bille Brahe and Peter Nøhr Christensen. Erwin Lauterbach is considered by many to be a wizard in the kitchen, and the chef who started the wave of gastronomic development that today has led to restaurants like NOMA and world-renowned Danish chefs.
1995
Gudhjem restaurateur Erik Noe takes over Melsted Seaside Hotel and initiates the hotel's first comprehensive exterior renovation, featuring the characteristic white buildings, blue windows, and open green areas, thereby laying the foundation for the seaside hotel we know today. The seaside hotel flourishes and becomes very popular among both local Bornholmers and tourists on the island.
After his sudden death in 2000, the seaside hotel gets new owners.
1932 – 1995
Klara Christensen was a pioneer in tourism on Bornholm. She quickly embraced the upper-class's latest trend: taking summer holidays. Simply by renting out rooms in her house to summer guests. She managed everything herself, and in 1935, Klara built a brand new, sparkling building next to the old house. The place was called Pension Ellebæk, and this functionalist-inspired building is today Melsted Seaside Hotel. Even then, it was chalk-white.
In 1949, the hotel was sold and led a rather unnoticed existence with various owners, including Harry Hammer, who was the host for about twenty years – and for a time also chairman of the Gudhjem and Surroundings Tourist Association, Aksel Hansen until 1983, and Lillian and Benny Henriksen until 1995.