Närwe

History

According to the annex to the 1756 land map, the plot belonged to Närvelin. The old customs house was located on the corner of this plot. In 1800 the plot was owned by the bourgeois dowager Leena Birgstedt. She had more than five barrels of arable land, a large meadow, two food barns, half a reef with barns, a shed, a shore hut and a loading dock. The wealthy widow still had ship shares, claims and cash.

Fire insurance

Fire insurance was taken out on the plot in 1847, when the house was owned by the merchant Johan Wilhelm Nordling. The main building on Kuninkaankatu was old and in moderate condition, unplanked and painted red. It had 14 square windows and several doors and staircases to this building. The building had a hallway, a lobby, a combined warehouse and shop, and five chambers. Five of the residential rooms had paper wallpaper and half-transom doors, one of which, in addition to the hallway door, was a double door. Of the ovens, one was square and two round, with brownstones, two brick walls and two kitchen stoves. The interior of the shop consisted of shelves and compartments running around the walls, painted in oil paint.

The second residential building, located in the middle of the plot, parallel to the main building, was partly old, partly built in 1830, unplanked and painted red. It had four rooms: an entrance hall, a hallway, a chamber and a dormitory. The fireplaces were a tiled stove and a baking oven. Under the building was a vaulted brick cellar. In addition, there were two outbuildings on the property which were not insured.

In 1878, the house was reinsured by the master rope maker K. R. Rostedt. The main building was now boarded up and painted with yellow oil paint. The building had two halls, four halls, three chambers, two kitchens and two covered staircases. There were seven tiled stoves and two kitchen stoves. After 1847, the building was not only planked and painted, but had new tiled stoves in all the rooms. Two of these were porcelain. The second kitchen stove had also been replaced. All the floors had also been refinished, two porches had been made, five half-transom doors had been replaced and 18 new windows had been installed, all of them oil-painted. Six rooms had been fitted with French wallpaper and the kitchen and hallway had been papered with machine-made paper. One hall and a pantry and staircase had been completely redecorated. The tiled roof of the entire building had also been replaced.

The second residential building was still unboarded. The rooms were now listed as a storeroom, a washroom, a hall, a storeroom above the cellar and a central corridor leading to the garden. The oven in the baking room and the oven in the laundry room were new. The exterior was partly old, but partly built in 1860, partly boarded up and painted red. There were two dormitories, two woodworking sheds, two barns and a barn. The building now formed an angle, and the wing facing the Tullivahe was new. There was also a separate latrine on the site. Between the latrine and the barn was a small fenced cattle yard.

Modification drafts

There was a long residential building on the plot along Kuninkaankatu, with as many as 12 windows on one side. In 1889, one of the windows was to be converted into an entrance, as the building housed a bookshop. The door to the shop was a double door, and in front of it were high stairs rising on two sides, parallel to the pavement. The building had wide horizontal sills and six-paned windows with Custavian mouldings. The plot of land extended a long way along the road to Turku, now the Tullivahe. In 1893, a greenhouse was planned for the rear part of the plot, including a heating system.

From 1902 there is a document by John Fredr. Lindegren. It concerned the building in the courtyard, which was numbered 3 on the 1878 fire insurance. The building had contained a baker’s shop, a hall and a sauna. It was now desired to combine the hall and sauna into a single living room by demolishing the wall between the rooms. The oven in the sauna was replaced by a conventional heating oven and a gable-roofed porch with diagonal windows was built as an entrance. The building had hexagonal windows and double panelling. Adjacent to this building was a dormitory building with a high cellar underneath. The roofs of the two buildings were joined, leaving a corridor with gates between them, which gave access to the garden. The roof was covered with asphalt shingles.

In 1918, Arvi Leikari drew up a plan to spread the long building over almost its entire length. Two porches were demolished. Three kitchens, three chambers, two large hallways and six entrances were added to the extension. Six of the fireplaces in the old part had been against the street-side exterior wall and were now moved to the centre of the building. After the alteration, the building had three apartments, each with four rooms and a kitchen, and a separate entrance to the kitchen and the apartment.

A new building was added on the side of the present Tullivahe, replacing the previous angular outbuilding. The building contained four two-room and kitchen apartments. The outhouse and sleeping quarters in the middle of the yard were demolished and a new outbuilding was added near the western boundary of the property, with two larger storage rooms, eight woodsheds and a seven-stall privy. The façades of the buildings were designed in Art Nouveau style. The rear part of the site, facing the Tullivahe, had already been separated into its own plot.

In 1924, a small kiosk was built on the site.

The residential building on Kuninkaankatu was destroyed by fire and in 1937 the former workers’ housing of the glass factory was moved to the site. The two-storey building had two staircases and on both floors there were four flats with rooms and a kitchen. There was a sauna in the basement.

In 1955, the attic of the building facing the Tullivahe was converted into residential use. At the same time, central heating and amenities were built. In 1957, the outbuilding was replaced by a small, flat-roofed building with two wood sheds and a second shed, as well as a two-car garage.

In 1968, a kiosk was again built on the site.

In 1995, the two residential floors of the building on Kuninkaankatu were renovated into room and kitchen apartments with a modern kitchen and washroom. There were eight apartments in total. On the building facing the Tullivahe, one two-room and kitchen and two room and kitchen apartments were renovated on the ground floor and one two-room and one room and kitchen apartment on the attic floor.

Current situation

Residential building along Kuninkaankatu
2-storey wooden residential building. Moved to the site of a building destroyed by fire in 1937, pantile lining, saddle roof (originally workers’ housing in a glass factory)

Residential building facing the Tullivahe
Short-cornered residential building, horizontal boarded, built in 1915, designed by Arvi Leikari

Outbuilding
Plastered outbuilding.