Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit have spent years trying to turn a modest island cabin into a showcase of Norwegian design — an ambitious renovation that stalled just as it was about to break ground. Now a storm named Amy has done what years of royal scandal couldn't: it forced their hands. The tempest tore apart one of the docks on Flatholmen, the tiny island the couple has owned since 2008. The damage has produced the first real building permit the property has seen in years — not for the glass-and-timber dream house long promised, but for a humble pier.
Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette- Marit at Nordstu- Solberg farm in 2024 (Getty Images)
According to Norwegian outlet TV2, the municipality of Risør has cleared the crown prince and princess to rebuild the storm-wrecked dock. It's a modest approval, capped at six square meters, but it matters; without a working dock, the island is barely reachable, and any future revival of the couple's long-shelved architectural project would need one regardless.
The permit came with a catch. A companion request — for a seaside platform of the kind common along Norway's coast — was withdrawn after the state administrator recommended against it. The dock itself only cleared because of an unusual technicality: one of Flatholmen's existing moorings is used by police, which let the municipality authorize a second access point without setting a precedent for other landowners. Haakon and Mette-Marit will cover both the construction and the roughly $575 in municipal fees themselves. Notably, the original dock — built sometime between 1982 and 2004 — never had a formal permit at all, so this approval is being processed as new construction from scratch.
Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, alongside their kids Prince Sverre Magnus and Princess Ingrid Alexandra, and their dogs, Milly Kakao and ****** ins Krakebolle (NTB Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

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