Sølyst (Klampenborg)

Sølyst
Sølyst front view
General information
Location	Klampenborg, Copenhagen
Country	Denmark
Coordinates	55°46′17″N 12°35′34″E / 55.7714°N 12.5927°E / 55.7714; 12.5927Coordinates: 55°46′17″N 12°35′34″E / 55.7714°N 12.5927°E / 55.7714; 12.5927
Completed	1760
Client	Just Fabritius
Owner	Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society

Sølyst is a former country house located just near the Øresund coast in Klampenborg, Gentofte Municipality, on the northern edge of Copenhagen, Denmark. It now houses the Royal Copenhagen Shooting Society.

The first Sølyst, then spelled Zeelust, was built by a merchant called Julius Frøichen. It was half-timbered and stood 11 bays long. In 1725, it was bought by another merchant, Just Fabritius, who also owned the nearby Rococo mansion Christiansholm, which he had built in 1746. He replaced the house with a new building in 1760.

In 1776 the property was acquired by Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann, a central civil servant in the financial administration and later Minister of Financial Affairs, who used it as his summer residence. The year before he had married Countess Emilie Rantzau but she died of tuberculosis just five years later when only 28 years old. He remarried in 1782 and with his new wife Charlotte, continued to spend his summers at Sølyst. During the winter season they resided at the Schimmelmann Mansion which he had inherited from his father that same year. At Sølyst, to commemorate his first wife, he commissioned the artist Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard to design a monument, Emiliekilde, by a small spring next to the main road where she had often rested on her walks in the surrounding countryside. Ernst and Charlotte Schimmelmann shared a passion for the arts and with them the house and park developed into a colourful cultural venue which gained an international reputation.