About Us
We are a Finnish-Swiss couple, Anne and Pirmin. We have been hosting friends and visitors in Ivalo in the north of Finnish Lapland since 2010. We now also rent out flats in the Sunila housing estate designed by Alvar Aalto in southern Finland, right by the Baltic Sea, which have been renovated as faithfully as possible and furnished with designer furniture.
The distance between the two points on the north-south axis is about 1000 km....
We welcome you to both the south and the north!
To Finland? There are lots of mosquitoes, it's dark and it's always cold!
Anne: "I've always had to correct these clichés and still do." But fortunately not for my own husband.
So we are a Finnish-Swiss couple, Anne and Pirmin. We met at the end of the 1990s in Switzerland, Pirmin's and, from the 1980s, my second home country. It goes without saying that I myself was interested in Finland, but a man who was really interested in my former homeland was unusual.
From the very beginning of the relationship, Pirmin's interest in Finland was great; after all, as a geologist, he had already familiarised himself with the ancient rocks of Finland. Our journey together on Finnish soil began with summer hikes in Lapland. These holidays in Lapland soon became the highlights of the year for us."
What drew us to Lapland?
Bright summer in Lapland! Hikes in the light of the nightless night, the babbling brooks, the feeling of infinity, peace, silence, the purity of the air and the lakes, the brightness of the forests ... the feeling of being one with nature.
What about mosquitoes and the cold?
We have found our own happiness where mosquitoes do not thrive. Temperatures can easily reach 30 degrees in summer, otherwise the temperatures in Lapland are like in the Swiss Alps: up quickly, down quickly.
A place of our own in Lapland
One summer, Lady Luck intervened and we were given the opportunity to buy a plot of land by the lake. A log cabin was soon built on the plot according to our wishes, followed by a few other buildings later on.
We are happy to accommodate guests. Many friends and regular guests who have become friends have visited our house over the years.
And then Sunila!
Sunila is located near Anne's birthplace in Kotka. The silhouette of a pretty factory lined the opposite shore when you looked east from the harbour. But that I would one day live in Sunila? No way!
Chance intervened again, this time in the form of Alvar Aalto's Sunila flats.
We heard about Alvar Aalto's housing estate in Sunila and a few weeks after our first visit, we were proud homeowners. The rest is history...
We are often in Sunila ourselves and are committed to the preservation and revitalisation of the settlement, both personally and actively in the local association Pro Sunila ry. Finland is proposing a total of 13 projects by Alvar Aalto for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List, including the Sunila factory and residential area as the largest project.
We would like to share our enthusiasm for Sunila's architecture and Finnish design with you!