Today's residence

Villa Rauhaniemi was demolished some time between 1912 and 1916.
Mr Severi Damsten bought the plot in 1916 and built the present building and the gardener's cottage. The buildings, designed by the architect Jarl Eklund, were completed in 1918. The property changed hands in 1922, when it was bought by Mr Reinhold Weckman. Four years later it was sold again, this time to the British Government on May 3rd 1926, as the Residence of the Minister of the British Legation to Finland. Thus the 75th anniversary of British ownership fell on 3 May 2001.

The building was designed as a three-floor family house, with five bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor. Two of the bedrooms were for guests and one for the maids.

The original master bedroom (now the sitting room), located on the central axis of the building, had a bathroom and dressing room, plus a balcony and a decorative ceramic tiled stove, which is still there and in use to this day. The building, designed to be heated by radiators on the ground and first floors, also had two open fireplaces on the ground floor and two, including the ceramic tiled stove, on the first floor. The kitchen and two rooms in the basement also had wood burning stoves for cooking and heating water for domestic needs.

When the British bought the Residence in 1926, they converted half the attic into staff accommodation, added an extra bathroom on the first floor where the maid's room used to be, and carried out plumbing and heating works. In 1938 a garage was added to the gardener's cottage - which flanks one side of the front courtyard -and in 1945 the dining room was extended outwards to allow a longer dining table to be accommodated. By the 1970's, traditional Finnish sauna facilities had been built in the basement and a fourth bathroom on the first floor.

In 1987 the kitchen was refurbished and various heating and plumbing works in the basement completed. Further renovations took place in 1992, 1995 and 1998, focussing on the modernisation of all the bathrooms and basement area, and on the replacement of mechanical and electrical services.

Special points of interest in the appearance of today's Residence include the windows, particularly those on the ground floor, with their elegant proportions and relatively unusual design.

At the time the building was constructed, it was generally recognised that a measure of the owner's wealth was reflected in the design, and quality of the windows. The timber would have been sourced from pine trees from the north of Finland, where slow growth ensured that the timber was close grained and dense, providing greater resistance to rot. The sophisticated iron-mongery used for fittings would also at that time have been very expensive.
This initial investment has however proved its worth. The original timber framed windows were found to be in excellent condition under all the layers of paint, and much of the original glass still existed on the SW and SE facades. All the paint was carefully removed before repainting in the traditional way with linseed oil paint. Over the years the windows had collected an assortment of iron-mongery. All, apart from the original ones, were renewed in a sympathetic style.

During renovation works to the facades carried out in 1998, it became apparent that there were two layers of render, the first probably being the original. It then became evident that the original colour scheme of the Residence was in fact pale yellow, and the gardener's cottage, a slightly darker shade of yellow. This conforms with the common practice at the time of painting the main house a different shade to the outbuildings. By pure co-incidence, one of the younger plasterers involved in the works remembered that his father, also a plasterer, had applied the last coat of render to the Residence approximately 30 years before. It was presumably at this time that a decision had been taken to paint the house pink.

The second coincidence concerns the choice of colour pigment. It is common for colour pigmented lime wash paints to be mixed by hand on site, in order to get the most satisfying result. At least 15 samples were prepared, with different natural pigment combinations from differing sources, before a final decision was made. The main pigment in the three-colour ratio that was finally chosen turned out to bear the name 'English red' – pink houses are a particular feature of the east of England.

It was necessary to renew the gypsum decorative capitols below the balcony, on the SW facade. Casts were taken for exact duplicates to be made, and these reinstalled and painted with linseed oil paint. The Royal Coat of Arms was also removed, and beautifully restored with gold leaf to its former glory. Jim Prehti -Wright, one of the staff and a hands-on architect, skilled in restoration work, carried out this task as a labour of love, which involved many hours.

Happenings at the Residence

The British Residence has seen good and bad times. There are interesting records of the christening of Alexander Cresswell, the son of the then Ambassador Sir Michael Cresswell, at which President Kekkonen and Mr. Erkko, later the Finnish Foreign Minister, were present. At least one big dinner was given during the 1952 Olympic games in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Kent (only 19 years old then). And one of the highlights at the Residence must have been the State Visit by the Queen in 1976.

Mrs. Thatcher stayed in 1990 when she opened the modern Embassy building. Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair both made visits at different times.

The Duke of Edinburgh has visited many times in his capacity as President of the World Wildlife Foundation. The Queen stopped briefly on her way back from Russia in order personally to deliver the invitation to President Ahtisaari for his State Visit to England in 1995.  This coincided with the last visit of the Royal Yacht Britannia to these waters. The Earl of Wessex stayed in October 2002 when he attended an International Award Association conference in Helsinki.

Less happy times included the moment in 1941 when the British Minister was pulled out after Britain declared war on Finland, pointedly on Finland's Independence Day, the 6th December. The American Embassy, who had been renting the Villa Baumgartner next door, moved in to look after British interests. A Russian bomb fell in the front of the Residence, causing damage and blowing out the windowpanes. The Americans hastily moved into their own Residence across the road, which had just been built, and the British Embassy was boarded up and left. A British Commissioner returned soon after the war terminated and relations returned to normal.

The Residence today looks much the same as it did when built, apart perhaps from the colour. Certainly much credit is due to the original design and layout of the reception rooms on the ground floor, which haven't changed and work perfectly for entertaining to this day.

Today the Residence is extensively used, not just for official visits and formal entertaining, but for commercial and cultural events including concerts, presentations, student visits and seminars.

Written by Mr Gordon Falla