The New York Times: A Finnish House Channels a Spartan Past

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(All photos by Goeril Saetre for The New York Times)

The living area of Petteri Knudsen’s small house on a lake in Finland is furnished simply,

with a custom-made sofa by the Finnish designer Harri Koskinen ($2,750); a table made out

of an old door, by Ville Hara, Dr. Knudsen’s ex-boyfriend and one of the architects

who designed the house; and a moosehide rug.
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The Louis Poulsen Satellite lamp ($715) in the dining area hangs over a birch table
from the Finnish maker Nikari (a prototype bought for $1,000)
and wooden chairs salvaged from the trash.

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Mr. Hara, the architect, sits on the Harri Koskinen sofa in the living area.

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The bedroom is furnished with a secondhand Hastens bed Dr. Knudsen got from a friend,

Ikea lamps ($25 each) and a wood-burning stove from the Danish company Scan ($3,450).

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An Artek lamp ($300) hangs in the kitchen over an Ikea Melltorp table (about $50)
flanked by two Hee chairs from the Danish company Hay ($200 each).

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Dr. Knudsen, left, hired Mr. Hara, right, and Anu Puustinen of Avanto, an architecture firm
in Helsinki, to design the house. One of his favorite features, he said,
are the floor-to-ceiling windows that open in all directions,
offering unobstructed views of the forest.

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The 800-square-foot house was completed in 2010, for 250,000 euros (or about $340,000).
Its spruce exterior was given a black finish so it would blend into the trees from a distance.
“We wanted to hide the house,” Mr. Hara said, “so that it didn’t destroy the surroundings.”

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The text:

A Finnish House Channels a Spartan Past

By ELISA MALA

Published: November 16, 2011

Photos by Goeril Saetre for The New York Times

VASKIVESI, Finland

ON a remote horseshoe-shaped island here in a lake with water stained the color 

of root beer by minerals in the sediment, a small dark house peers out from 

behind a thicket of fir trees.

“You can imagine that you’ve traveled 3,000 years back,” said Petteri Knudsen, 

the owner. “And it was all the same.”

Dr. Knudsen, 48, lives and works about 150 miles south of here, in Helsinki, 

where he is the medical director of the Finnish branch of GlaxoSmithKline, the 

pharmaceutical company.

At his vacation home, however, his life is a study in austerity, almost as if he lives 

in a previous century. The house is heated by two wood-burning stoves, and 

there is no running water. There isn’t even a cellphone, Dr. Knudsen said.

Solar panels provide a small amount of power, but most appliances and electrical 

fixtures, like the lamps and the radio, are battery-powered. Dr. Knudsen bathes 

in the lake and has a small outhouse not far away.

The 800-square-foot house was completed in 2010 for 250,000 euros (then 

$340,000), on five acres Dr. Knudsen bought in 2007 for the equivalent of $60,000.

It was designed by Ville Hara, Dr. Knudsen’s ex-boyfriend, and Anu Puustinen of 

Avanto, a Helsinki architecture firm, to withstand the cold winters.

The house sits three feet off the ground, on concrete pillars, to reduce snow-

related damage. The walls are insulated with linen stuffing, and the flat spruce 

roof is lined with a layer of recycled newspaper a foot-and-a-half thick. The floor-

to-ceiling windows are double-paned, and made to be extra sturdy.

Inside, the house is sparsely but carefully furnished.

The angular gray sofa in the open living area was designed by Harri Koskinen 

($2,750), and the coffee table was made by Mr. Hara out of a refurbished door. 

The moose-hide rug was a gift from Mr. Hara’s father, a hunter, as were the 

moose skull and antlers hanging by the entrance.

In the dining area, under the glow of the orb-like Louis Poulsen Satellite lamp 

($715), is a birch table from the Finnish maker Nikari (a prototype Mr. Hara 

bought for $1,000) and wooden chairs that Dr. Knudsen said he “rescued from 

the garbage.”

Tucked into a corner to the right of the entrance are the only two rooms with 

doors: a closet and a modest bedroom outfitted with Ikea lamps, a secondhand 

bed from Hastens and a cream-colored butterfly chair, or “bat chair,” as it is 

called in Finland, Dr. Knudsen said.

The home’s most modern feature is an homage to one of Finland’s oldest 

traditions: the sauna. A 258-square-foot spruce structure a stone’s throw away 

contains a steam room and a guest room. (The building cost $65,000 to 

construct.) Even on the most frigid days, Dr. Knudsen’s ritual is to bask in the 

warm, moist air and then take a dip in the lake.

But his favorite aspect of the home is the dense forest that surrounds it.

In all four directions, floor-to-ceiling windows open to small terraces, offering 

unobstructed views of the woods. As Dr. Knudsen said, “The interior and exterior 

become one.”

A version of this article appeared in print on November 17, 2011, on page D7 of the New York 

edition with the headline: A House Channels A Spartan Past.

Ville Hara
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