20th Century

In 1901 Eggert Briem and his wife Katrín Pétursdóttur started large-scale farming on Viðey. They built a cattle-shed housing 48 cows, and sold about 200,000 litres of milk per year to the inhabitants of Reykjavík.
In 1907 Pétur J. Thorsteinsson and Thor Jensen founded the P. J. Thorsteinsson & Co. fishing company, with share capital of a million krónur, a huge amount at the time. Hence it was always known as Milljónafélagið (the Million Corporation). It was located at the eastern end of the island, where a village of houses and fish-processing facilities developed, adjacent to the best harbour facilities on Faxaflói Bay. At that time Reykjavík had no proper harbour.  The Million Corp. went out of business in
1914, but fish-processing continued. In 1924 the Kári company made the island its fishing headquarters, and the population of the village rose to a high point of 138 in 1930. A year later the fishing company failed, after which the islanders began to move away. By 1943 the village was uninhabited. Farming continued on Viðey until the 1950s, after which the island was uninhabited. By 1968, when Viðey House and the church passed to the National Museum of Iceland, the buildings were severely dilapidated. In 1986 the Icelandic state presented the buildings to the City of Reykjavík.
Renovation work on the buildings was completed in 1988.