Historic houses
Sómastaðir in Reyðarfjörður
Sómastaðir was built in 1875. Its uniqueness lies mainly in its construction technique, as the outer walls are built of roughly hewn grey-stone blocks and smiðjumór, glacial clay, is used for mortar. Sómastaðir is the only preserved house built with this technique in Iceland.
Hans Jakob Beck a farmer and fishing-vessel owner and administrator of the district, had the house built to the south of the existing traditional turf farmhouse. He may have been inspired by houses of a similar type he had seen on his travels in Scotland.
In 1988, the stone house at Sómastaðir came under the custody of the National Museum of Iceland, which carried out several renovations on it in the following years.