Cash payments give Ísafjörður house its Central Bank nickname

A family home in Ísafjörður has been known as the Central Bank for 50 years because its construction bills were paid in cash, mbl.is reports. Rúnar Eyjólfsson has lived at Hlíðarvegur 45 since 1976, when he built the house with his two brothers and their parents.

“When work on this house began, the money was taken from the piggy bank and everything was paid for with banknotes. The town’s jokers noticed this and started talking about the Central Bank,” Rúnar says.

The house is a family home, as such buildings are sometimes called, and its residents have lived there peacefully. The nickname also became a talking point because of the Icelandic central bank, whose interest rate decisions have wide effects across society. The house’s name was carved into a wooden sign, which was not put on the front of the building until 2008.

Construction began in 1974, when Rúnar, Þráinn and Ólafur joined forces with their parents, Eyjólfur G. Ólafsson and Guðrún Pétursdóttir. It was a prosperous period in Ísafjörður, during the trawler years, when fishing was highly productive and money was flowing into the town.

“Our family needed housing at the time, and we saw that this kind of cooperation could work well,” Rúnar says. The house stands on a slope where the ground was deep before reaching solid ground. Excavation work with a bulldozer and excavator was therefore difficult, and the foundations were made from oil drums.

Rúnar says his father spent much of that period at sea and paid the excavator operators directly in cash. The name came almost naturally, he says, reflecting a strong tradition in Ísafjörður, and perhaps elsewhere, of giving people and houses humorous nicknames.

The family’s skills also helped keep construction costs down. Rúnar is a carpenter, Þráinn is a plumber and Ólafur was a painter, so much of the work on the multi-unit house was done by the brothers themselves.

Their parents lived in the house during its early years. Rúnar and Þráinn still live there, while their brother Ingólfur Birkir later moved in after buying Ólafur’s apartment. The apartment once occupied by their parents now belongs to unrelated residents whom Rúnar describes as good neighbours.

The brothers once drew lots to decide who would get each apartment. Rúnar says he was particularly lucky: his home on the upper floor has a view across Eyrin and out over Djúpið, allowing him to watch town life from his living-room window.

Rúnar has built many houses during his career and has also worked extensively on the maintenance and reconstruction of buildings, including old churches, where his careful craftsmanship has attracted attention.