To think it all started with a trash can. I first became acquainted with Danish lifestyle brand Vipp during Copenhagen’s annual design festival, 3 Days of Design. Last summer, I visited one of the company’s experiential spaces, Vipp Garage, where a mid-century industrial building was transformed into a sultry Moroccan guesthouse. The takeover was conceived in collaboration with Studio KO (the Marrakesh- and Paris-based architecture practice behind the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakesh and Chiltern Firehouse in London), who, for the occasion, introduced Vipp’s signature modular V1 kitchen in a striking copper coating.
Also in a luminous rose-gold-esque finish was Vipp’s first product, the humble pedal bin, created in 1939 by Holger Nielsen. In 1932, when he was just 17, Nielsen won the lottery. His prize was a car—though, not having a license, he instead sold it and used the money to build a metal factory. When his wife Marie opened a hair salon in 1939, she asked her husband to create a bin. Over subsequent decades, Nielsen’s design went from being a favorite of local businesses to an international design icon (in 2009, it even entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Today, Vipp is run by Nielsen’s grandchildren, Kasper Egelund and Sofie Christensen Egelund, and produces everything from sofas and rugs to lighting and mugs. In 2014, Vipp opened its first guesthouse, a 592-square-foot steel pod in Lake Immeln, Sweden. The company’s portfolio has since expanded to include 14 more properties, typically set in nature-filled destinations off the beaten path, such as Todos Santos on Mexico’s Pacific coast or Tasmania’s Bruny Island.
defaultPhoto: Courtesy of Vipp
As a freshly minted fan of the Vipp universe, I was thrilled to learn that the company’s latest guesthouse would be opening during spring 2026 in my proverbial backyard, the Catskills—and that I’d have the privilege of staying there this April. The 1,200-square-foot building sits beside a private pond at the edge of a forest in Pond Eddy, a hamlet in Sullivan County. Two hours door to door (and one very scenic swirling drive along the Delaware River later), my husband Craig and I arrived to the Vipp Pavilion in our rented SUV, a recommendation we were grateful to have been given for navigating the property’s unpaved grounds.
