Lappeenranta’s last remaining jugend building faces uncertain future as owner prepares to sell

A 1908 jugend-style building in Lappeenranta, one of the last of its kind in the city, is set to change hands after its owner announced plans to sell, public broadcaster Yle reports. Retired construction engineer Juha Narinen, who has maintained the property for decades, said he hopes the next owner will preserve the building with care.

The two-storey structure, located at the intersection of Taipalsaarentie and Liisankatu, has housed businesses ranging from a dairy shop to a family home and most recently a children’s group home. Narinen acquired the building in the 1990s from bankruptcy proceedings after watching it fall into disrepair. “If there’s something I can do, it has to be done,” he said of his decision to restore it.

Now 76, Narinen cited his age as the reason for selling. A closed bidding process concluded this week, though the new owner has not yet been named. “I’ll be 77 this autumn,” he told Yle. “It’s time to pass the baton. I hope it will be preserved respectfully—and even improved.”

The building’s history traces back to timber merchant Joonas Hietamies, its first owner. By 1910, 28 people lived in the courtyard’s two structures. Over the years, it has served as an engineering office, a machine and auto dealership in the 1920s, and a milk shop operated by the Lappeenranta dairy cooperative from 1952 onward.

Kristiina Pesola, a building researcher at the South Karelia Museum, noted that residential and commercial buildings like this are often less documented than public structures. Most of Lappeenranta’s early 20th-century architecture was demolished in the 1960s and 70s to make way for apartment blocks, making this jugend building a rarity.

Local legends claim the building once appeared in a film starring Ansa Ikonen and Tauno Palo, though Narinen doubts the story. Another persistent rumour suggests a miniature replica exists in Denmark’s Legoland—something former owner Vesa Kourula, whose engineering firm renovated the property in 1989, mentioned in a 1989 lecture. Yle contacted Legoland for verification but had not received a response by publication.

Narinen said he was motivated to save the building in part because he knew its previous owners and renovation history. The property has been vacant for a year, and he acknowledged the challenges of maintaining an older structure. “There’s always been curiosity about this place,” he said. “People still stop by to share stories.”