Kesäranta is the official residence of the Prime Minister of Finland, located in Helsinki in the neighborhood of Meilahti, overlooking Seurasaarenselkä.
Source: WikipediaRead more on Wikipedia
About this site
Architect Frans Ludvig Calonius designed and had Kesäranta built as his summer villa in 1873. Upon completion the villa was located outside Helsinki city limits and was part of the Meilahti villa area, where many wealthy Helsinki residents had their summer villas built during the late 19th century. In 1887 Kesäranta passed into the ownership of Carl Robert Ignatius, cashier of the Bank of Finland. Ignatius carried out extensive alterations under the supervision of Elia Heikel. Heikel added the characteristic 20-metre tower and a veranda on the seaward side of the building. In 1904 the state purchased Kesäranta, making it the official residence of Finland's governor-general. Its first occupant was Nikolai Bobrikov, who however spent only a brief period at Kesäranta, as he was shot that same summer. Bobrikov's successors Ivan Obolensky, Nikolai Nikolayevich Gerhard, Vladimir Alexandrovich von Boeckmann and Franz Albert Alexandrovich Seyn each lived in Kesäranta in turn. After the Civil War the commander of the German Baltic Sea Division, Rüdiger von der Goltz, lived in the building and later so did regent Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. In the years following independence, however, the building quickly became established as the prime minister's official residence. Nowadays a government council meeting called the evening school is often held at Kesäranta in summer. The evening school convenes on Wednesday evenings. The name derives from the late 1930s, when Prime Minister A.K. Cajander began to invite ministers to Kesäranta to discuss the matters on the agenda of the general session of the Council of State held on Thursdays.
Official description (Museovirasto) — machine-translated from Finnish
- Municipality
- Helsinki