Kesäranta (, ) is the

official residence An official residence is the residence of a head of state, head of government, governor, religious leader, leaders of international organizations, or other senior figure. It may be the same place where they conduct their work-related functions. ...

of the

Prime Minister of Finland The prime minister of Finland ( fi, Suomen pääministeri; ) is the leader of the Finnish Government. The prime minister and their cabinet exercise executive authority in the state. The prime minister is formally Finnish order of precedence, r ...

, located in Helsinki in the neighborhood of

Meilahti Meilahti (in Swedish Mejlans) is a neighbourhood of Helsinki between Mannerheimintie (the main entrance road to Helsinki) and a bay named Seurasaarenselkä. Most of the houses in Meilahti were built in the 1930s and 1940s. Meilahti is home to ove ...

, overlooking Seurasaarenselkä. The residence is owned by the

Finnish Government sv, Finlands statsråd , border = , image = File:Finnish Government logo.png , image_size = 250 , caption = , date = , state = Republic of Finland , polity = , cou ...

through Senate Properties. The Meilahti neighborhood where Kesäranta is located is a zone of

prohibited airspace A prohibited airspace is an area (volume) of airspace within which flight of aircraft is not allowed, usually due to security concerns. It is one of many types of special use airspace designations and is depicted on aeronautical charts with the l ...

History

Pre-government ownership

Kesäranta was built in 1873 as the summer villa of architect Frans Ludvig Calonius, under the Swedish name, ''Bjälbo''. At the time of its construction, Meilahti lay outside the boundaries of Helsinki. Initially, Kesäranta was a two-storey wooden villa, but in 1887, after it was acquired by Carl Robert Ignatius, a cashier at the Bank of Finland, the building was altered to the designs of Elia Heikel, who added a 20-metre tower and a bayside veranda to the building.

Finland's Governor-General's residence

In 1904, Kesäranta was purchased by the State to serve as the summer residence of the

Governor-General of Finland The governor-general of Finland ( fi, Suomen kenraalikuvernööri; sv, generalguvernör över Finland; russian: генерал-губернатор Финляндии) was the military commander and the highest administrator of Finland sporadic ...

. Architect

Jac Ahrenberg Johan Jacob Ahrenberg, usually referred to as Jac (30 March 1847, in Vyborg – 10 October 1914, in Helsinki) was a Finnish architect, writer and artist. He designed a number of public buildings in Finland and is also remembered for his literary wo ...

was commissioned to make the necessary changes to the building and its furnishings. A new kitchen wing was attached to the main building and a glazed veranda was built on to the side of the building facing the sea. The villa served as the summer residence of Governor-Generals Obolenski, Gerhard, Boeckmann, and Seyn.

Kesäranta during Finnish independence

Following Finland's declaration of its independence in 1917 and the

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

in 1918, the German general

Rüdiger von der Goltz Gustav Adolf Joachim Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz (8 December 1865 – 4 November 1946) was a German army general during the First World War. He commanded the Baltic Sea Division, which successfully intervened in the Finnish Civil War in the spr ...

lived in Kesäranta briefly. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim also used Kesäranta as an occasional residence during his term as Regent, or ''Protector of State'', from 1918 to 1919. Since 1919, Kesäranta has served as the Prime Minister's official residence. In the summertime,

the government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

holds its informal evening sessions at Kesäranta. These take place on Wednesday evenings and date back to the 1930s, when Prime Minister

Aimo Cajander Aimo Kaarlo Cajander (4 April 1879 – 21 January 1943) was the Prime Minister of Finland up to the Winter War. Cajander was born in Uusikaupunki, and became a botanist, a professor of forestry 1911–34; director-general for Finland's F ...

adopted the practice of inviting ministers to Kesäranta to discuss and prepare matters to be handled in the Government plenary session on Thursday. A thorough renovation of the main building took place first in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. The main building was restored to look as it did in the beginning of the century, including the rebuilding of the tower and the veranda, which had been removed in the 1950s. The courtyard of Kesäranta includes a seaside sauna, a maintenance building, a guard's house, a pavilion, a jetty, and a tennis court. In 2017, a blue sign reading "100" was installed on the yard of Kesäranta to commemorate the centennial year of Finnish independence.

Prime ministers who have resided in Kesäranta

Jukka Rangell Johan Wilhelm (Jukka) Rangell (25 October 1894 – 12 March 1982) was the Prime Minister of Finland from 1941 to 1943. Educated as a lawyer, he was a close acquaintance of President Risto Ryti before the war, and made his initial career as a bank ...

Edwin Linkomies Edwin Johannes Hildegard Linkomies (22 December 1894 – 9 September 1963, until 1928 ''Edwin Flinck)'' was Prime Minister of Finland from March 1943 to August 1944, and one of the seven politicians sentenced to five and a half years in pris ...

Urho Kekkonen Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (; 3 September 1900 – 31 August 1986), often referred to by his initials UKK, was a Finnish politician who served as the eighth and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982. He also served as prime minister ...

Mauno Koivisto Mauno Henrik Koivisto (; 25 November 1923 – 12 May 2017) was a Finnish politician who served as the ninth president of Finland from 1982 to 1994. He also served as the country's prime minister twice, from 1968 to 1970 and again from 1979 to 1 ...

Esko Aho Esko Tapani Aho (born 20 May 1954) is a Finnish politician who was prime minister of Finland from 1991 to 1995. Early life and career Aho was born in Veteli, Finland. Prior to attending university, he began a career in politics. From 1974 t ...

Paavo Lipponen Paavo Tapio Lipponen (; born 23 April 1941) is a Finnish politician and former reporter. He was Prime Minister of Finland from 1995 to 2003, and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland from 1993 to 2005. He also served as Speaker of t ...

Matti Vanhanen Matti Taneli Vanhanen (; born 4 November 1955) is a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2003 to 2010. He was also Chairman of the Centre Party and President of the European Council in 2006. In his earlier career, he ...

* Mari Kiviniemi *

Sanna Marin Sanna Mirella Marin (; born 16 November 1985) is a Finnish politician who has been serving as the Prime Minister of Finland since 2019. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP), she has been a Member of Parliament since 2015. ...

References