August Abrahamson is the last private owner of the Nääs estate. He was born to German-Jewish parents in Karlskrona on 29 December 1817. Abrahamson became a very wealthy merchant with his own trading house in Gothenburg – August Abrahamson & Co. The firm traded in so-called “haberdashery” – small products such as buttons, threads, shirt collars, gloves, etc., imported from Germany, England, and France.
In 1868, at the age of fifty, Abrahamson, together with his wife Euphrosyne Lehman, purchased the Nääs estate. Euphrosyne was born in Stockholm in 1836 and was an internationally renowned opera singer when she met August. The couple had no children together, and August came to live alone at Nääs, as his wife passed away as early as 1869, only 33 years old.
At Nääs, extensive farming was conducted, including 80 dairy cattle. In 1872, August established a handicraft school for boys at Nääs, and a few years later a work school for girls. These developed into the Nääs Handicraft Teacher Training College, which became world-renowned. Abrahamson wanted the school to continue even after his death, so the estate with the school became a foundation in 1901. The foundation still manages the estate today, but the school was closed in 1966. Abrahamson lived at Nääs until his death in 1898 and is buried in the castle park.
