The Sovelius House

The Sovelius House is the oldest surviving residential building in Raahe. The house, built in the 1780s, is a typical 18th century bourgeois home. It is a two-storey house on a high stone foundation, with exterior walls of vertical timber weatherboarding. The Carolinian floor plan, typical of the period, can still be seen on both floors: behind the wide hall there is a living room with two rooms on each side. The porch on the northern facade was added in the early 20th century.
In 1990, the Raahe Museum rented the Sovelius House from the Sovelius Foundation. After the surfaces were examined, the decision was made to restore the upstairs in the 1890s style and the downstairs in the Art Nouveau style of the early 20th century. The conservator of the museum prepared wallpapers with silk-screen printing, using the old wallpapers that were found on the walls as a model. The museum office is in the Art Nouveau style downstairs premises.
Upstairs in the Sovelius House, there is a restored home of a shipowner. The home offers an overview of the whole panoply of the wealthy home inhabited by a shipowner and a merchant in the 1890s.