Axel Munthe spouse Hilda Pennington-Mellor Munthe
Marriages
Axel Munthe married Ultima Hornberg, a Swede, on 24 November 1880, whom he met while she was studying art in Paris. They divorced in the late 1880s, and in 1892 she married a Swedish manufacturer named Gustaf Richter, and gave birth to a son in 1893, before dying in 1895.
In 1907, Munthe married Hilda Pennington-Mellor (1876–1967), whose English family owned two notable properties: Hellens in Herefordshire, one of the oldest dwellings in the country, and Southside House, a 17th-century mansion on Wimbledon Common in London. They had two sons, Peter and Malcolm. There is an anecdote that when Munthe was discussing The Story of San Michele with his publisher, John Murray, in the garden at Southside, Murray told him that his ancestor and namesake John Murray (1778–1843) had sat in the same garden with Lord Byron to discuss publication of Byron's works.
During 1910–1911, Munthe had a 14-room summer home built in Sweden as a gift to his wife. It was originally called Stengården (The Stone Court), but has been known as Hildasholm since her death. It is set amongst trees on the shore of Lake Siljan in Dalarna, and the architect was Torben Grut, who also designed the Stockholm Stadium used for the 1912 Summer Olympics. Hilda landscaped the home with an English garden as part of the dramatic rocky surroundings, and furnished it with 17th, 18th and 19th-century art and furniture from Italy, England and France.
The family usually stayed in the house during the summer, but Munthe was more often at the San Michele.
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