Hessenstein Palace

The Hessenstein Palace is a city palace in the Old Town of Stockholm, Sweden. It is a three-winged, three-story building on Riddarholmen on the northeast side of Birger Jarls Torg.

The palace, in the Mannerist style, was built around 1630 for the Privy Councillor Bengt Bengtsson Oxenstierna. Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna and his wife Eva Juliana Wachtmeister bought the building from his relative in 1670. In 1680, they had the palace rebuilt by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger into its current form, probably based on designs by his father, the court architect Nicodemus Tessin the Elder.

King Frederick (1676-1751) bought the palace and gave it in 1734 to his mistress, Countess Hedvig Ulrika Taube. The upper floors were renovated by Carl Hårleman, but Hedvig Taube died in 1744, even before the renovation was completed. The palace thus passed to Frederick William of Hessenstein, her and the King's son, who completed the renovation and after whom the house has been named ever since.

In the 1750s, the politician and then President of the Chancellery Carl Gustaf Tessin, son of the architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and governor of Crown Prince Gustav III, rented the house, as the royal family lived in the opposite Wrangel Palace while the Royal Palace was being rebuilt after the fire of 1697.

From 1835, the building housed various government institutions. In 1983, it was restored, with interiors from the 1600s and 1700s being reinstated. Today, the building is used by the Court of Appeal, the Svea hovrätt, whose headquarters are located in the Wrangel Palace.