Inside A Billionaire Banker's Laboratory For Sustainable Luxury Travel

Forbes

4 days ago

The original lighthouse of Vejrø island Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
Maybe it's utopian. Maybe it's dogmatic. Maybe it's ideologically rigorous. That's largely beside the point. A stay on Denmark's Vejrø island is a pure pleasure.
Vejrø is not a political project. There's no preaching. But in fact, it's the owner's deep commitment to state-of-the-art sustainability and regeneration that underlies all the island's pleasures: the exuberant flavor of just-picked vegetables. The soft Atlantic quietly lapping at the pebbled beaches. The simple 19th-century houses that were home to generations of islanders.
The island, which spans almost 400 acres, is not connected to the mainland and is powered only by what it harnesses and creates. It's the passion project of billionaire Kim Fournais, who co-founded the Nordic fintech powerhouse Saxo Bank in 1992 and still serves as its CEO. But he also spent much of the past two decades developing his vision for Vejrø—which he purchased in 2005—revitalizing its structures and land, and using the island as a nature-forward gathering place for his family, colleagues and friends.
Some of the accommodations on the island Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
Now that this vision is more complete, he and his team are working to attract more people to Vejrø. While the island is still a popular destination for corporate gatherings and private celebrations, it's also positioning itself as a place for sailors, day trippers, overnight guests, weekenders and anyone who wants a deep immersion in rural tranquility and a glimpse of what's possible when technology and nature work together.
'I think it's kind of obvious to most people that the world is not necessarily in balance now climate-wise, ecologically, geopolitically,' says Fournais. 'So to have a small place like this, if you can build sustainability in 155 hectares where people can have relaxed luxury and calm down a little bit…. And then produce our own energy and produce our own food and make sure we have regenerative farming with a lot of biodiversity…' He trails off, considering what he's building.
'I love the nature. I love being here,' he continues. 'I think it's amazing to be here, but I also think it's a very, very important thing because if you can do it on 155 hectares, you can do it everywhere.'
Some of the greenhouses and gardens Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
In some ways, Vejrø is not unlike other Nordic islands, like Denmark's Bornholm or Sweden's Gotland, where a windswept rustic simplicity is mixed with a strong gourmet sensibility. That famous Scandinavian hygge is less a branding gambit than an unassuming fiber that's woven through everything.
But Vejrø is much smaller and more tightly controlled, fully based on the dreams of one entrepreneur and unique in its thoroughgoing hybrid of the homespun and the high tech. Fournais has invested millions in a wind turbine and solar power system that produces both electric and thermic energy, a reverse-osmosis plant and a biological micro-treatment plant. (The latest addition is a new electric hydrofoil, one of only four in the world and an investment of more than $2 million. It's bringing its first guests to the island from Karrebæksminde, about an hour's drive from Copenhagen, this week.)
The machines are all programmed to work together in a microgrid, and relevant staffers monitor its real-time data on an app on their phones. Visitors who want to nerd out with them are more than welcome: Operations director Steen Erik Højgaard happily leads tours around the island on foot or in a little electric vehicle, answering question after question about how it all works.
The island from above Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
But there's no need to be an environmentalist or a data scientist to enjoy Vejrø. While the island is largely forest; grazing areas for pigs, cattle, sheep and chickens; or plots that are cultivated following the principles of regenerative agriculture, the man-made parts are a handcrafted homage to simpler times.
The island was inhabited until the 1980s, with houses, a lighthouse, a school and a store, but it never had a ferry to the mainland or even a marina. Their building style was simple, and they never added a lot of flourishes. Over time, the structures degraded. And because people understandably tend to be more motivated to ship goods into the place where they live than to ship them out when they leave, the last residents left behind cars and appliances and other large trash.
'I had to start by throwing out a hundred tons of garbage. It was all overgrown and so forth,' says Fournais. 'But I'm the kind of person who sees a lot of opportunities in many things, and I love nature. I just thought this would be a great experiment, but also a good proof of concept that you could take something that was like an outcast, that was really not in balance at all, and try to change that by being committed.'
Directions on the island Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
He and his team used old photos and worked with architects to re-create a residential structure that feels true to the past. The historic houses were restored and sometimes expanded, creating 35 guest rooms spread across buildings around the island. These range from cozy doubles to a romantic suite with a wood-burning stove beside the freestanding bathtub. (There are an additional five glamping tents, with the possibility to set up more for larger events.)
The accommodations are soothing and perfectly comfortable, but you don't come to Verjø for a luxury hotel experience. You come to reconnect with nature and its rhythms. A big piece of that is the food that's grown, raised or hunted on the island. (Species such as pheasants and deer have been reintroduced, and humanely culling the herds is part of sustainable wildlife management.)
'I think we got a little bit out of sync with how to live an active, sustainable life,' says Fournais, pointing out that his country's biggest company (by far) is one that sells a pharmaceutical solution to some of the problems caused by that asynchrony. A stay at Vejrø won't reverse that, of course, but it offers a chance to eat wholesome food and feel good about it.
The suite Courtesy of Vejrø Resort
It's also delicious. At lunchtime, the Skipperly restaurant serves smørrebrød (open-face rye bread sandwiches) with toppings like batter-fried fish and tiny shrimps in mayo, or green asparagus with boiled eggs and lighthouse cheese—'we're very Danish and very proud of that,' says the island's administrative director, Charlotte Winter Cederbye—but they've recently changed the concept to be gastronomic at night. Now they're calling it Restaurant Gaia and aiming for a Michelin green star and inclusion in the White Guide (the Nordics' answer to Michelin).
The dinner offer, for overnight guests, is a series of ever-changing tasting plates composed of meat raised on the island, vegetables grown in its fully organic garden plots and greenhouses, and fish caught in the waters nearby: turbot with wild asparagus and caviar, for example, or grilled langoustine with miso-fermented tomato and rosemary flowers.
There's a great deal of technique, and the presentations are beautiful, along the lines of what you'd find in many fine dining restaurants in Europe. But they're not abandoning any principles to play the gastronomy game. They bring in olive oil and wine, but that's about it. In late May, a request for fresh fruit at breakfast went politely unmet; that simply wasn't something the island was giving then.
A chef gathering herbs from the garden plots Anthon Unger
Of course, there were delicious alternatives on offer, and the equilibrium was kept. Luxury here is not abundance. It's something deeper.
'I think it's really the combination of showing how we as people can find a balance but without giving away [nice things],' says Fournais, who admits that Vejrø is not yet profitable or break-even as a business. He's aiming for it to become viable now that all of its elements are complete.
'I think that there's a lot in the debate where environmental fighters want us to more or less dig a hole and change our lifestyle completely and not travel anymore and not do the things that people like. I don't think that's very likely, and I don't think it's common sense because there are a lot of [developing] countries that are, I think, equally keen to get a better life like the rest. I think the right way forward is to find out how you can apply technology.'
He continues, 'My job here is not to change the world, but it's just to give an indication that there can be spots where you can build self-sustainability in a different way, but still where it's a great experience.' MORE FROM FORBES Forbes This Wildly Creative Restaurant Turns Campfire Cooking Into Fine Dining By Ann Abel Forbes At Copenhagen's New Epicurus, Fine Dining Meets Subterranean Jazz By Ann Abel Forbes This Maverick British Chef Is Rewriting The Rules Of Fine Dining By Ann Abel