Ulriksdal bears the fingerprints of Sweden's greatest architects across three centuries. After purchasing the estate in 1669, Queen Hedvig Eleonora commissioned Nicodemus Tessin the Elder to transform it into something grander. Tessin's drawings envisioned a stately three-story palace with a lantern roof and side wings extending toward the lake. Work began in the 1670s but halted around 1690 when the queen's funds ran low. When construction resumed under King Frederick I in the 1720s, architect Carl Harleman had different ideas. He introduced one of Sweden's first mansard roofs, giving the palace its distinctive profile. Later, Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander added the neo-Renaissance chapel in the garden during the 1860s. The nearby Orangery, designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger at the end of the 17th century, now houses part of the National Museum's sculpture collection.

Behind the palace stands the Confidencen, Sweden's oldest surviving Rococo theatre. The building began life in the 1670s as a horse riding house before serving as a guesthouse. In 1753, Queen Louisa Ulrika commissioned architect Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz to convert it into a theatrical space. The resulting 200-seat theatre features a remarkable device: the table a confidence, a dining table that can be lowered through the floor to the basement below, where servants set it with fresh courses before raising it back up. This allowed the royal family to dine without servants present in the room. The theatre fell into disuse but was restored and reopened in 1981 under the direction of opera singer Kjerstin Dellert, who has operated it ever since.

The palace's fortunes have swung dramatically over the centuries. During the reigns of Adolf Frederick and his son Gustav III in the mid-to-late 18th century, Ulriksdal served as one of the Swedish court's main residences, a center of grand court life. Queen Sophia Magdalena of Denmark lived here as dowager queen from 1792 until 1813. Then the palace sat empty until King Charles XIV John converted it into a veterans' hospital for soldiers wounded in the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809. For nearly three decades, from 1822 to 1849, wounded veterans recuperated where kings had once held court. The conversion stripped most of the 18th-century interiors, leaving the rooms largely bare when Prince Charles acquired the property in 1856.

Prince Charles, later King Charles XV, found the empty palace a blank canvas for his passion for antiques. Working with architect Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander, he spent years acquiring period furnishings and decorating the rooms to his personal taste. Many of these pieces remain on display today. The palace would continue to attract royal collectors. When Prince Gustav Adolf married Louise Mountbatten in 1923, the couple made Ulriksdal their home. Designer Carl Malmsten transformed the former knights' hall into a modern living room with his distinctive furniture. When the palace opened to the public in 1986, curators arranged these accumulated treasures together: Carl Malmsten's mid-century pieces alongside Charles XV's antiques, Gustaf VI Adolf's arts and crafts collection, and King Gustaf V's silver.