The community of Karlholm has an industrial heritage reaching back to the early 18th century with iron works and saw mills. The Karlit board factory isn't of that vintage but started up in the late 1930s and shut down for good in 2012. The later part of its life was unstable with several different owners, among them Ikea who stepped in as a part-owner in 1995 and later became full owners. Karlit produced MDF board for Ikea until 2004 when board manufacturing was moved to Poland. But production for Ikea continued, now by manufacturing complete sets of furniture, among them the futon Hermes. Eventually Hermes and most everything else was moved to the Czech republic and soon after Karlit closed down.
The entire property was sold at an executive auction in spring 2013. The sole bidder was a entrepreneur who purchased it for the price of a family car with an idea to rent parts of the factory for storage. But since the area came with several kilometres of waterside the vision grew to what is now known as Project Karlholm Strand.
Again it's all thanks to my good friend Pavel Matveyev that I got the opportunity to experience Karlit before it was completely demolished.
