HS Helsinki | A luxury house from the 1960s in Östersundom is falling into disrepair, where luxurious parties were organized and Kekko was held

Sven Sevelius built a house intended for representative use in place of Fants, using the best materials of the 1960s. The wide eaves are copper and the wood trim is teak.

Absent is the glory of a bygone era. The sun has faded the teak cladding of the abandoned building and has patinated the copper panels of the eaves to green. The grass grows tall in the yard.

The two-story house located on Fantsintie in Östersundom is remarkably large. The L-shaped building surrounds an atrium-type courtyard on three sides.

There is an open fireplace on the outer wall of the lower floor, and opposite it is a relief carved from wood. On the outdoor terrace and in the yard, you encounter a surprise: there are dozens of handgun casings on the ground.

The place is quiet and deserted, but in the 1960s and 1970s there was life here. Garden parties and parties were organized in the house, where the president Urho Kekkonen was a regular guest. The owner of the building Sven Seveliuswhose good friend the president was.

Kekkonen used to take morning walks here on Sundays and participated in elk hunts in the nearby forests.

But what has happened to the former valuable building and who is really shooting here?

A wooden relief remains on the outer wall of the building.

Sven Sevelius (1912–1981) was a businessman, jurist and consul general who prospered through publishing. In the 1950s, he built a two-story log house with a gable roof on the Fants farm he owned, which represented the Art Nouveau style.

Right next to Fants is the Rödje-Fants farm, where HS wrote an article about the oldest residential building in Helsinki.

Read more: When you ask people what the oldest house in Helsinki is, you probably get the wrong answer – Pia Tavastjerna now tells what life was like in the oldest house in Helsinki

At the end of the decade, however, Sevelius wanted additional space, so an extension of more than 600 square meters was made in connection with the main building. The house was reportedly completed in 1962.

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It is the only building still left on the plot, as the main building made of logs has already been demolished.

In the Helsinki City Museum’s statement from 2019, it is stated about the extension that it “follows the architectural ideals of the time and was made of high-quality materials with an eye on representational use.”

The open fireplace on the outer wall downstairs has also seen its best days.

Sevelius organized numerous parties and meetings at his house. Especially the president of Tunisia Habib Bourguiban the reception organized in Fants in honor of the state visit in June 1963 was quite a social event, which Helsingin Sanomat was also invited to follow.

Sevelius had handed over his house as a party venue, as he was Tunisia’s consul general in Finland.

About 500 invited guests arrived at Fantsi, and the cream of Finnish society, the presidential couple, was present. The program of the reception included performances by Tunisian dancers, music, food and drink.

The editor of HS described the spaciousness of the party venue and the fine dresses of the female guests in his article. Special attention was paid to the organization of the occasion:

Organizing such a big celebration requires a lot of arrangements, but Consul General Sevelius is known to be a first-class organizer and everything went exactly according to the notes for a couple of afternoons in a piece of Finnish manor landscape that became Tunisian territory.

Sven Sevelius (right) celebrated his 50th birthday at the Fants office on December 12, 1962. In the photo, Sanoma Osakeyhtiö’s head of printing Risto Kavanne (left) and vice president and editor-in-chief Aatos Erkko greet the daily hero and his wife Maila Sevelius. President Urho Kekkonen and his wife and Prime Minister Ahti Karjalainen also brought their greetings to Sevelius.

Seveli’s rough life could be seen and heard in the village of Östersundom, which was Sipoota at the time.

An architect who grew up in Östersundom and still lives there Jan Fallström still remembers the Cadillacs the Seveliuses had.

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“Cadillac was a really hard word at that time in the countryside. My father was a friend of one of Sevelius’ sons and got to ride it with him.”

In addition to large American irons, Seveliuski had Östersundom’s only swimming pool and an electric stove in their representative building. When the Seveliuks took saunas, the stove caused problems for the whole village: the local electricity network did not want to withstand the high-powered device.

“The village ran out of electricity, and the pipes burned in the radios and televisions,” says Fallström.

“That happened to us too. I would imagine that it cost us more to repair the TV than the electricity at worst.”

Fallström Mum Leena Liipola before getting married, worked as an innkeeper at Sevelius and got to see family life closer than others.

The house was often visited by guests, and Sevelius put up with businessmen, ministers and so on Pertti “Spede” from Pasa toowho went to play poker with the CEO.

President Kekkonen was a regular guest, but then Fallström’s mother was not there. He was sent away because the host people knew their guest.

“At that time, my mother was a model-beautiful young woman. Beautiful women, alcohol and Kekkonen were notoriously a bad combination.”

President Urho Kekkonen (right) was a familiar sight on hunting trips in Östersundom. In the front on the left is Nils Blomberg, the owner of the Rödje-Fants farm. The picture is from the folding of the 1960s and 1970s.

Kekkonen also regularly took part in deer hunts organized in Östersundom, where the kingdom’s elite gathered in autumn.

The Fallströms’ home was located right next to the Fants farm. The elk hunt usually started in the family’s yard, and the foresters were usually not in the clear.

“They just drove into our yard without asking any permission, left their cars there, took some money from the pocket mats and went into the forest with a heavy barrel,” Fallström recalls.

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Sven Sevelius died in 1981, after which the buildings were bought by the Central Association of Hunters (now the Finnish Game Center). It paid FIM 2,850,000 for the deal, which is equivalent to around one million euros today.

The organization converted the residential buildings into office space and moved its operations to Fants.

However, the building had suffered from moisture damage, so it was completely renovated in 1997. At the same time, changes were made to its structures.

The Finnish Game Center sold the property to the city of Helsinki in August 2014. Since then, the building has been rented out for filming to several film and television production companies.

However, the gable-roofed main building of the Fants farm had gotten into a very bad condition. The city of Helsinki got permission to demolish the building due to mold damage, which happened in 2017.

The main building of the Fantsin farm as photographed in 2009. The house located at Fantsintie 14 was demolished in 2017. The extension part splits the building from behind.

The Sevelius property photographed from above.

For the rest the remaining expansion part doesn’t seem to be doing any better. The house looks badly dilapidated. Head of the City of Helsinki’s Business Facilities Unit Antti Halm to make sure it really is.

“Consul Sevelius’ real estate complex is basically in a state of demolition,” says Halm.

So the fate of the house seems to be sealed, but the city of Helsinki has not yet made a decision about the future of the house.

But why are there a lot of shell casings in the yard of the building?

Authorities often train in demolished buildings. According to Halm, this has also been done in Sevelius’ house.

“The shells are presumably from the Defense Forces. The defense forces train hard at the site.”

There are dozens of shells on the terrace of Sevelius’ house.

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