It was a common practice to build luxurious country mansions for leisure and recreation, and in the 1800s there were as many as 70 such mansions in the vicinity of Bergen, the best of all being Damsgaard's country palace; Built in the 1770s for Minister of War Gyldenkrantz, the palace is the most important example of Rococo architecture in Norway, and is probably the best preserved wooden building in Europe from that period.