The Story of Kotkaniemi
Kotkaniemi is a rural judge residency located in Luumäki. It was built by Lappee district judge Alfred Thomé in 1898. P. E. Svinhufvud was inaugurated as the successor of Thomé in 1908, and the family bought the Kotkaniemi estate. Even though the Svinhufvud´s occasionally had to spend longer periods of time away from Kotkaniemi – the presidency in the 1930s being the last period, Kotkaniemi stayed as the loved family home to which they always wanted to return and where they lived until their deaths.
In addition to the main building the courtyard included a side building, a farm workers’ hut, a lakeside sauna, storehouses and other buildings such as a henhouse, a stall, a cowshed and a cellar. Like traditional farmhouses, there were chickens, sheep, cows, horses and occasionally other domestic animals in the courtyard. The farm also included farmland, which was located farther away on the other side of the road that went through the estate.
After the deaths of Pehr and Ellen Svinhufvud, the estate was inherited by their youngest child, son Veikko Eivind. He and his wife Aune started a boarding house and after them, the Kotkaniemi boarding house was continued by grandson Jorma and his wife Sirkka. Four generations of Svinhufvuds have lived at and maintained the Kotkaniemi estate. Kotkaniemi opened as a museum in 2000 by the The Finnish Heritage Agency.
When the The Finnish Heritage Agency decided to discontinue the museum, the Kotkaniemi foundation was founded in 2013 to secure the future of place. The state implemented a thorough renovation in Kotkaniemi during the years 2016-2017 and the museum rooms as well as the garden were restored to their 1920s – 1930s look.
