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Price: 1.85 mln €
Planimetry
History:
The tower is a neogothic grain silo from the 1840s, later renovated and converted to a loft apartment.
Munkkiniemi (Swedish: Munksnäs, in slang Munkka) is a neighbourhood in Helsinki. Subdivisions within the district are Vanha Munkkiniemi, Kuusisaari, Lehtisaari, Munkkivuori, Niemenmäki and Talinranta.
This tower was used for surveillance and messaging by the military during the Crimean war. Today, it is situated in a residential area and itself used as housing. Designer Timo Sarpaneva lived here during the 1970ies.
The land in Munkkiniemi was from the 17th century a part of Munksnäs manor.
The tower (granary) has been designed by a German architect C L Engel who also designed the Munkkiniemi manor and what is more important: the whole empire center of Helsinki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Ludvig_Engel
In the 1910s grandiose plans were made to expand all of western Helsinki with tens of thousands of new inhabitants, the so-called Munksnäs-Haga plan by Eliel Saarinen. The construction of the new areas started slowly and it wasn't until the 1930s that a more extensive construction phase began in Munkkiniemi. From 1920 to 1946 Munkkiniemi was part of Huopalahti municipality. Huopalahti including Munkkiniemi was incorporated with Helsinki in 1946.
The place HIM’s singer calls home is a 19th Century watchtower once used by the Finnish military to keep a look out for invading ships. A cellar, ground-, first- and second-floor are topped by an attic and linked by winding, spiral staircases. From the sounds of it, Valo has chosen to decorate it in a style best described as eccentric. He talks of the taxidermy collection that litters the place, the art on the walls, the curious collections of bits and bobs he picks up and hides in scattered cubby holes.
“I’ve got a few stuffed animals, thousands of books and CDs and a lot of instruments,” he says. “There’s nothing of great value for anyone else, but lots of things with great sentimental value for me. I’m one of those people that can’t throw things away. It can be anything too: I’ve got some nails from an old 18th Century painting I found, for example. I always hide things in places where I think I’ll find them, then completely forget all about them. There are a lot of nooks filled with hidden things.”
He lives there alone and somehow the idea of him padding around his attic, composing songs until the early hours and sleeping where he collapses further endorses the image of a Romantic poet in his creaking Gothic castle.
“It’s not spooky; it’s got a good vibe. It’s messy. In fact, it’s a bit like our music, it’s full of contrasts,” he says. “It’s got some art, some fucked up things I’ve found, some antiques. It’s mix and match. I’ve always lived in places where I can look around and feel inspired. At home I can look up and, in one glance, see a stuffed bear, the artwork for Venus Doom, a grand piano with a stuffed deer on it, and a ‘70s Danish porno called New Cunts. I had to have that porno, I loved the name so much. It’s so wrong it’s fabulous. I keep it propped up on a children’s organ next to an altar for St Francis Xavier.”
Munkkiniemi is one of the more affluent areas of Helsinki. Characterized by the relatively high proportion of Swedish speakers, around twelve percent, and a socioeconomic structure heavy on upper management and professionals, the district is appreciated as a particularly safe and well-serviced part of the city. This is reflected in the high prices of housing.
Despite its name, Munkkiniemi /Munksnäs (Monk Cape), there has never been a monastery there. Munkkiniemi is one of many monk-related place names on the south coast of Finland, like Munkkisaari, Munkkala and Munkinmäki. Munksnäs was first mentioned in 1540 in the form Munxneby and has later been spelled Muncknäs and Muncksnääs. In the year 1351 the king Magnus IV of Sweden let Padise monastery, close to Tallinn, take over the parishes of Porvoo, Sipoo and Helsinge. The Danish monastery came through this arrangement also in possession of Munksnäs that was a village within Helsinge parish. Munksnäs was probably a trading place for the lucrative fishing, and the catches were shipped as far as to Tallinn and Stockholm. The monastery lost its right to the area in the beginning of the 15th century but was allowed to keep a share of its yield. After Gustavus Vasa’s reformation all the lands of the church were ceded to the crown.
On March 27, 1629, king Gustavus Adolphus gave large areas of land west of Helsinki (Munkkiniemi, Tali, Lauttasaari and Hindersnäs (Meilahti)) to rittmeister Gert Skytte. Skytte was of Baltic noble descent and changed his name from German von Schütz to Swedish Skytte when he was raised to Swedish nobility. What Skytte achieved on Munksnäs manor is unclear. The town of Helsinki wanted to incorporate Munksnäs in 1650, but the widow of Skytte, Kristina Freijtag, refused and Helsinki only got Pikku Huopalahti, Tali, Lauttasaari and Hindersnäs. Hindersnäs was reunited with the lands of Munksnäs in 1686, until Helsinki bought the land in 1871.[1]
Charles XI initiated the "reductions" in which much of the Nobility's lands were transferred to the Crown. Munksnäs was ceded to the crown in 1683 and the king kept the ownership until the mid 18th century. Munksnäs manor became a manor whose owner rented the land from the king. During 1712-1722 during the Greater Wrath Munksnäs manor was uninhabited.[1]
The Mattheiszen family, of Dutch origin, took over Munksnäs manor in 1744 and they bought it in 1759. From this time exists the first mentioning of the manor house that stood on the same place as today’s manor house. It consisted of six rooms of which two were called halls. The manor also had a brick factory, a sawmill and a flourmill. The brick factory was located at Tiilinmäki (Brick Hill) and the flourmill in the rapids of Mätäjoki in Pitäjänmäki. In 1815 the middle part of the manor house got its present look. During this time the manor had one hind and five to seven maids, but the bulk of the work was done by crofters.[1]
In 1837 the Ramsay family bought Munksnäs manor. The glory days of the manor occurred during the Ramsays time and many prominent visitors visited the manor and feasts were held. General Major Anders Edvard Ramsay was a high-ranked military officer in the Russian army and became noble in 1856. He hired the architect Carl Ludvig Engel to rebuild the manor house to look like Haga Palace in Stockholm. The house had two wings and a balustrade on the roof added. The reconstruction work was finished in 1839. In the 1830s an English park was planted around the manor house and the farm buildings were removed away from the sea side. The bridge over to Meilahti was built in the 1840s.[1]
Kalastajatorppa (Fisherman’s cottage) park in 1915
Despite the high demand for summer house properties outside Helsinki in the end of the 19th century the Ramsays didn’t sell land. The only exception was Kuusisaari island that was sold in 1873. George Ramsays only son Edvard Ramsay was sickly and couldn’t take care of the manor. He therefore sold the manor’s land, 517 hectares, to the company M.G. Stenius for 1 500 000 marks in 1910. The family kept the manor house and the 9.5-hectare-park and called the property Villa Munksnäs. The homesteads Skyttas and Rosas in Konala, covering 100 hectares, were also kept by the Ramsays. In the end the family sold all the land bit by bit. At the time of the purchase the city of Helsinki was criticized for not having bought the area. The city claimed that it was unaware of the selling, but the city council’s chairman Alfred Norrmén knew about the plans but thought the price was too high. The M.G. Stenius company did quickly begin to plan the newly bought area and the planning task was given to Eliel Saarinen in 1912.
Photos
Living room
These two pictures are made by Christopher Shy @ http://studioronin.com/, even here
Metal Hammer Interview back in 2010 about Ville's home
From outside
Video of the house
Video
Edited by Baudelaire In Braille - 25/6/2015, 14:08
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