Penttlä

History

In 1756 the plot was owned by Juhana Jaakonpoika. In 1800 the house belonged to the bourgeois Johan Panelius. He had a small field and an old barn.

Fire insurance

The fire insurance was taken out in 1857 by the master bookbinder P. A. Muhr. There were three buildings on the plot. The one along the street was old, in moderate condition and boarded up. It had six rooms: an entrance hall, a hall and three chambers, and a kitchen. The roof was made of boards. The building also had a boarded porch. There were five six-paned windows and one half-paned window with eight panes. The outer doors were semi-transomed, the outer door was a double boarded double door, there was also one boarded door. Two of the fireplaces were brown glazed and two were brick tiled, and there was a kitchen stove. There were four chimneys.

The building in the centre of the plot was built in 1847, was in good condition, unplanked and unpainted. The roof was tiled. The building had an entrance hall, a hall and a kitchen. There were five windows of six panes. There was a canopy over the entrance porch. The outer door was a double door made of double board with a window above it. There were four semi-transomed intermediate doors. The hall closet led to the attic stairs. There was one brown glazed stove, one white glazed stove and a kitchen stove with a baking oven. There were two chimneys.

The outbuilding at the rear of the property was built in 1845, partly of new logs, partly of old materials. The building was in good condition and contained a barn, stables and a barn. In addition, a double plank driveway and a smaller access gate were insured.

A five-yearly inspection in 1892 of the property, owned by the widow of the bookbinder P. A. Muhr, found the street-side building and outbuilding to be in disrepair due to age and poor maintenance. The roof, fireplaces and other parts, both inside and outside, were in such poor condition that the insurance value of the buildings was reduced. In 1902 it was decided to remove the outbuilding, as it was old and decaying, from the insurance policy altogether. Amalia Muhr, the bookkeeper’s widow, was said to be so old and ill that she would not soon be able to repair the buildings in the slightest. The other buildings were found to be in fair condition. In 1905, it was found that the new owner of the buildings, the sailor Emanuel Björk, had already started to repair the buildings.

Modification drafts

A modification drawing by Arvi Forsman, dated 1902, concerns the outbuilding at the rear of the plot. The idea was to build a latrine with a properly insulated space. There is also a building along Pohjankatu and a building in the middle of the plot.

An alteration drawing by Arvi Forsman, dated 1904, concerns the residential building along Pohjankatu and the residential building in the middle of the plot. There is still an outbuilding at the rear of the plot. The street-side building was extended on the courtyard side. The building already had a kitchen area projecting from the building frame, but when it was enlarged, space was created for a larger pantry, behind the kitchen on the street side. On the other side were two chambers, which already had a porch in front of them, but now the porch was enlarged somewhat. On the other side of the kitchen was a small double-height section with an entrance hall, kitchen and two rooms. The second room is marked to be slightly extended. A new porch was built in front of the second room. After the alteration, the building had four apartments with private entrances. Two of them were only the size of a room. The old furnaces had been replaced by ovens, which provided both heating and cooking facilities. The doors between the rooms made it possible to divide the apartments in different ways according to need.

The building in the middle of the courtyard had been a semi-detached building with an entrance hall, a small kitchen behind it, and large living rooms on either side, and a small main chamber at one end. The entrance and porch had been on the south side of the building. There had been parts of the building frame of different widths. Now two kitchens and two entrances were built on the north side, and the building was divided into two separate apartments, each with two rooms and a kitchen. The old porch and a couple of boarded-up sheds at the end of the building were demolished. The street-side building is shown on the plan with new cladding. It is a three-storey neo-renaissance cladding. The windows are T-pane and the mouldings are geometric in theme. The adjacent gateway followed the same line.

In 1905, a wing was added to the exterior along the eastern boundary of the site. It was made entirely of planking and included sheds and a latrine. The old part of the outbuilding had both log and plank elements. In 1907 the outbuilding was extended again. This time a wing was built on the northern boundary of the plot, making it a horseshoe-shaped building. The new part of the building included two cattle sheds with a latrine between them and a board shed.

A plan by Arvi Leikari for a residential building in the middle of the plot dates from 1911. On the north side, at the east end, they wanted to build a new kitchen, including a baking oven. A small porch was added in front of the kitchen entrance. The drawing shows that there was a porch where the kitchen used to be, and the room was apparently a separate dwelling. So now this apartment has a kitchen.

In 1908, there was again a desire to extend the outbuilding slightly. This time, a pent roof was added to the end of the building.

In 1976, a sauna was added to the residential building in the middle of the plot to replace one of the kitchens. After the alteration, one large and one small dwelling remained in the building.

In 1993, a building along the street was renovated. The toilets and kitchens were renovated and washing facilities were built. Two apartments were kept in the building. A small, separate sauna building was built in the part of the courtyard closest to the street.

In 1999, a new residential building was planned for the rear of the plot, on the site of the outbuilding. The plan was drawn up by Markus Bernoulli.

Current situation

Street-side building
Short-cornered, gable-roofed residential building from the c. 1850s, Renaissance style from 1904 (Arvi Forsman)

Residential building in the middle of the plot
Long- and short-cornered residential building, gable roof, older than the street-side building

Outbuilding in the southern part of the plot
New building

Outbuilding at the rear of the courtyard
Terraced, gable-roofed outbuilding row.