Childhood home of CGE Mannerheim offers glimpse into history of Finnish nobility

Louhisaari Manor celebrates 350 years

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By Irma Stenbäck
     
      A group of pre-schoolers are eating their picnic lunches on the lawn of the Louhisaari Manor. Behind the poplars and the apple trees in bloom is the sea. Nightingales are singing and singing, and the feeling is pleasantly restful after Mannerheim tales and ghost stories.
      The children have just taken a half-hour tour of the Louhisaari Manor Castle, which is now a museum, with creaking floors, stone staircases, and a starry ceiling in the room of Mannerheim's sons, explains seven-year-old Oiva Riipponen.
      "If there were plenty of servants, I could live in a castle", comments Alisa Mustamäki, also seven.
      The excited comments of the pre-schoolers are at least as good an indication of the national significance of the Louhisaari Manor Castle as the book on the manor which was published earlier in the week.
     
This year will be the 350th anniversary of the construction of the Louhisaari Manor. The baroque style main building, which was completed in 1655, is an architectural rarity in Finland. It is also one of the best-preserved manor house environments in Finland.
     
Louhisaari in the western community of Asikainen, and Sarvilahti in Pernaja in the southeast, are the only manor castles in Finland to have been influenced by the Italian Palladian architecture. The baroque manor of Louhisaari is known as the Finnish home of the Fleming family, and as the birthplace and childhood home of the wartime military commander, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (1867-1951).
      The favourite of the older generation is still the blue bedroom on the third floor, and the mahogany Biedermeier bed where Mannerheim is believed to have been born. The room is still in the condition that it was in the 1860s.
      After a series of colourful changes of ownership, the state got Louhisaari as a bequest in 1961. The castle was restored and turned into a museum. The main building was opened to the public in June 1967.
     
The celebration of the 350th anniversary began this week, when the laundry room and a storeroom for wooden implements were opened to the public. The kitchen and bakery of the manor had been in that part of the building until 1792, after which they were moved to the lower level.
      Museum director Sari Tauriainen notes that Louhisaari is the only place in Finland to contain an intact interior dating back three centuries.
     
"Louhisaari offers sensations for both the public at large, as well as for researchers, artists, architects, and historians. The view that opens up from the yard in front of the manor is almost unchanged from what it was in the 1650s when the castle was built. The yard is supposed to have a rough appearance", Tauriainen observes.
      During the past two years, it has been possible to enter the building only in the company of a guide. The three-storey castle, built out of brick and covered with plaster, has remained in its original state - all the more reason to preserve it well.
      On the guided tour, the visitor is made to feel like an invited guest, to whom the hosts are showing their treasures from over 300 years. No wonder that the Louhisaari Manor Castle is one of the favourite places for antique expert Wenzel Hagelstam.
      Louhisaari's main building represents the late Renaissance style, but the storeys of the manor are designed according to standards dating back to medieval times. The original wood-burning tile stoves are still there, as are the original impressive bars on the windows.
     
The rooms of the museum form entireties of style and history. The interiors of the ground floor of the manor, and the top floor, where festivities were held, are in the style of the 17th century. The middle floor, where the living quarters are located, represent the style of the 18th and 19th centuries.
      Louhisaari reflects the social stratification of the old class society. The ground floor was for the servants, without whom the noble residents could not have had warm plates for their foods.
      Life in a 17th century manor included implements such as a brass bed warmer to heat up the cold sheets. The covered pan was filled with hot coals, and can be found in the large bedchamber, which also contains Finland's only preserved curtains of a baroque bed, Tauriainen explains.
      The oldest original room is the main chamber on the ground floor. It dates back to the 17th century, and has a limestone floor. The arched ceiling of the stairway is painted with a motif of different species of birds.
      Tauriainen also points out patterns in the rock made by fossils 450 million years old
      The top floor ballroom is the largest and grandest of all. The viewer is dumbstruck by the 17th century artwork on the ceiling, which has never been patched or painted over. The painting is signed by Jochim Langh of Lübeck.
     
If some of the paintings on the ceiling of Louhisaari are based on reality, the picture can be seen to be one of the earliest paintings depicting a Finnish landscape, says researcher Jouni Kuurunen.
      "Tempera colours are durable, and the building has had a suitable temperature for them. Louhisaari has been preserved amazingly well, even though Russian forces took everything during the Great Hate in the 18th century. They even took the marble steps of the manor, and the oaks along the roadway were cut down", Tauriainen explains.
      One of the favourites of visitors is the so-called Devil's Chamber on the top floor, named after the satyr's head painted on the linen wall covering. Next to it is the large Gentlemen's Chamber, where the rococo stove bears the blue coat of arms of the Fleming family.
      The favourite of the preschoolers, the ceiling depicting a starry sky, is in a room on the second floor, containing Biedermeier furniture, and the grand piano played by Mannerheim's grandmother. The museum room used to be the boys' bedroom, where they could count the stars if they could not get to sleep otherwise.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.6.2005
     
     
The Louhisaari Manor Castle (Louhisaarentie 244, Asikainen) is open daily 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM until the end of August.

More on this subject:
 Manor Castle passes for national home
 FACTFILE: Cultural heritage for all senses with EU support

Previously in HS International Edition:
  The ghosts of Louhisaari (30.7.2002)

IRMA STENBÄCK / Helsingin Sanomat
irma.stenback@hs.fi