Maalar

History

In 1800 the house was owned by the mayor Joh. E. Normén. He also owned a field, a meadow, a reef and a barn, and two beach fences.

Fire insurance

When the fire insurance was taken out in 1840, the owner of the land was the pharmacist Carl Fredrik Hellsten, who had bought the house two years earlier. There were five buildings on the plot at the time. The main building on the corner of Isoraastuvankatu and Vanhankirkonkatu had been erected in 1809 and boarded up in 1930. In 1837, new floors had been laid in all the rooms, and two years later the entire plank roof was replaced. The building had two chimneys. There were six double-glazed windows and five attic windows. There was a staircase with a handrail in front of the entrance.

The main building had a lobby, four chambers and a hall. As to the level of equipment of the rooms, it is reported that the floors were made of spruce planks and had a solid and tongue-and-groove floor. The ceilings were made of pine boards, with tongue and groove joints. The attic stairs led from the hall closet. A double door with a window led into the hallway. The doors to the rooms were semi-transparent, oil-painted mirrored doors. The rooms had ceiling, skirting and bust plates. The wallpaper in the hall was canvas and oil-painted, while the four chambers had paper wallpaper. There were large stoves in the hall and smaller ones in the chambers, made of brown glazed tile. The hallway had a simpler oven made of unglazed tile. The floor plan of the building was a Carolingian central hall plan, with a large hall and a narrow hall in the centre of the building and two chambers at either end. The hall wallpapers mentioned in the fire insurance are apparently the same ones that had later come to the museum. Their fruit tree motifs represent a stylistically older tradition, and are unique in Rauma in that they have survived. Only two similar ones have survived in Finland.

Maalar’s second residential building was newer than the main building and was located on the Vanhankirkonkatu side. It was built between the main building and the older outbuilding, and in conjunction with both. The building was erected in 1833 and consisted of a bakehouse, a separate kitchen and a pantry. There were five windows, plus five attic windows. The windows in this newer building were slightly larger than those in the main building. When the fire insurance was taken out, the building had not yet been boarded up or painted. The oven in the kitchen was of brick, with both a cooker and a baking oven. The brick kitchen oven had both a stove and a baking oven. There were four partition doors and a double door with a window to the hallway.

The oldest of the outbuildings was located along Vanhankirkonkatu. It was built in 1805 and had a stable for three horses, a barn for four cows and a calf, and a hayloft above the cattle sheds. A newer building, with a wooden barn and a sleeping quarters, dates from 1839, as does a building with a feed fence and a coach house. Under this newer building was a cellar with grey stone walls. There was also a latrine on the site, built at the same time as the other two outbuildings. These buildings were located on the northern boundary of the site, facing the town hall courtyard. The entrance to the site from Isoraastuvankatu was through a lined, oil-painted gateway made of strong planks. Between the main building and the gate was a board fence, built at the same time as the outbuildings.

After the death of the pharmacist Hellsten, the house was long owned by his widow. Fredrik Lehtinen, a merchant, bought the house in 1875 and sold it on in 1877 to F. W. Ström, a sailor. The buildings were in good condition and no changes affecting the insurance value were made before 1886. One of the chambers in the main building had been converted into a kitchen, and in 1876 the buildings were redecorated, including new doors in all the rooms. The interior of the baker’s shop was also renovated at the same time. The main building was painted with oil paint in the 1880s. The rear building had been panelled over the decades and was painted with red mortar. A covered staircase had been added outside the entrance. The cattle shed had also been boarded up and painted red. The macaque building along the street was entirely painted with oil paint. The carriage house and barn were boarded up and painted with oil paint on the yard side, the other sides were unboarded and painted with red paint. A new building added to the site in 1979 was a sauna with a washbasin, which was lined and painted in red paint. The property was enclosed by a fence. On the side facing the big gate there was a new, oil-painted fence and a gate with a smaller access gate in addition to the drive gate.

Modification drafts

In the spring of 1900, Kristina Ström, the widow of a merchant seaman, sold the Maalar house to Lehtinen & Sofronoff. In the same spring, the merchant Wilhelm Sofronoff began renovation work. The change was very radical. Although the plans drawn up by August Helenius from Turku state that it was an alteration and extension, in reality there was not much left of the old building to recognise. The main building was transformed into the present building, a broad, neo-renaissance building with a wide frame, almost the entire length of the side facing Vanhankirkonkatu. The panelling was one of the finest in the city. The building also had a gateway in keeping with the style. In 1906, internal alterations were made, and in 1907 a small stone-built section was added to the Isoraastuvankatu side of the building, with a bedroom alcove and cupboards. The design was drawn up by Onni von Zansen. A commercial door was opened in the centre of the façade in 1914. A shop window was planned for the building in 1916, along with an entrance from the alcove and the conversion of the adjacent window into a shop window. A roof entrance was also planned along Vanhankirkonkatu in 1921. In 1917, the Maalar house had passed into the ownership of Mrs Emmy Äyhönen.

In 1929, a kiosk was added to the Isoraastuvankatu end of the outbuilding. The façade was already representative. In 1933, a restaurant was added to the Isoraastuvankatu side of the building. The restaurant is run by Kosti Laitio. In 1945, the restaurant premises of Osuusliike Suoja were extended and renovated. The premises on the Isoraastuvankatu side were combined, and two rooms on the Vanhankirkonkatu side were set aside as cabinets. The rooms at the eastern end of the Vanhankirkonkatu side of the building were combined into a new restaurant with an entrance from the middle of the building. The kitchen facilities were also renovated. Storage rooms and a boiler room were added in the basement. All the furnaces were dismantled when the central heating was switched on. In 1946, accommodation was built on the attic floor. The facades were changed to accommodate the windows in the roof. In 1961, the restaurant was renovated. There are still two restaurants, one of which was service-oriented and the other self-service. The entrance to the self-service restaurant was moved to the east end of the building. One of the accommodation rooms on the attic floor of the building was converted into staff changing rooms and washrooms. Seven more rooms remained.

Current situation

Street-side building
Short-cornered residential building, now a restaurant, consisting of three houses built in the early 19th century, neo-renaissance style 1900 (August
Helenius), saddle roof

Commercial building
Newer shop building, lime planked, saddle roof, frame probably dating from 1839

Outbuilding
Exterior building of board and brick, partly built in 1839

Gate
On the Vanhankirkonkatu side, an old-style gate.