Our story
Freya Farm is a small, family-run countryside hotel with deep roots, built with passion and brought back to life with vision. The hosts of Freya Farm are Jón Marteinn and Karen.
The farm Minni-Mástunga, where the Freya Farm hotel is located, has been in Jón’s family since 1911, a place where generations have lived in close connection with nature, caring for the land and building their lives around it.
In the late 20th century, Jón’s parents began offering accommodation by building two summer cottages, which they rented out to guests. Not long after they added two more cottages and built the boutique hotel named Hotel Freyja, a beloved guesthouse known for its warmth, handcrafted details, and sincere hospitality.
The hotel thrived until the economic crash of 2008 in Iceland, which brought the business to a sudden halt.
As a teenager, Jón worked at the hotel. Those early years shaped his understanding of service, rural life, and the value of welcoming people into one’s world, lessons that stayed with him into adulthood.
In 2016, Jón met Karen, and together they decided to settle on the same farm where he had grown up. They built a home, started a family, and began farming. Karen worked as a teacher, while Jón ran the farm and took on external jobs in between.
In 2023–2024, they both enrolled in a Hospitality Management program from César Ritz Colleges hosted by the open University of Reykjavík and finished a diploma.
Their original plan was to complete the program and move to Switzerland with their children to continue working in hospitality abroad.
But life had other plans.
In the spring of 2025, Jón and Karen purchased the very hotel that had stood empty for years on their farm and began to restore the property, not just as a business, but as a way of life and a long-term vision.
Freya Farm is now open once again. Jón and Karen are proud to welcome guests from around the world and share with them the peace, connection, and genuine warmth that define this place.
