A Stately Home By the Sea

The Lönnström Home Museum is located on a hillside that slopes gently to the sea. The first floor of the stone villa houses the Lönnström family’s living spaces, ballroom and Rafael Lönnström’s study. Upstairs you can admire Teresia’s bedroom and from the guestroom window take in the view over Kappelinsalmi sound. In the Lönnströms’ day, the house was surrounded by a large garden, today it is a park.

The lavish interior reflects Teresia Lönnström’s taste and interests, but she also kept many mementoes of her husband, Rafael, in their original locations, especially in his study, also known as the Captain’s Room.

Teresia was an art collector, and the walls of the house are adorned with paintings from the golden age of Finnish art up to the 1960s. Among the gems are Antignano, Elin Danielson-Gambogi’s painting of an Italian village of the same name, as well as works by Ferdinand von Wright, Oscar Kleineh and Pekka Halonen.

The interior includes many porcelain objects that the couple brought back as souvenirs from their travels to Central Europe, in particular Denmark, where Teresia’s parents were from, and Rafael’s trip to China. There is also a large selection of Finnish art glass from the 1950s to the 1980s and Italian glassware from Murano. Authentic oriental carpets complement the decor of the home and its period furniture.

Many personal items, such as framed photographs and Teresia’s dressing table with its accessories, create the sense of life as it was once lived in the house.