Villa Angelica, Meilahti, Helsinki

The City of Helsinki is selling Villa Angelica with its outbuildings for use in accordance with the zoning plan via an auction on Huutokaupat.com.

The building is currently used as a restaurant. According to the zoning plan, the permitted uses of the building, in addition to residential use, include premises serving cultural activities and café operations. Any change of use is the buyer’s responsibility. The buyer will be leased a total rental area of approximately 2,153 m².

Address: Tamminiementie 3, 00250 Helsinki

District: Taka-Töölö

Villa building: Protected building (sr-1-s). The villa is a log-framed building founded on a natural stone plinth. The ground construction is a ventilated crawl space (so-called rossipohja). At the north end and on the east side there are separate wooden stair structures without separate plinth foundations. The building has two storeys, a partial basement (technical room) and an attic. External walls are log-constructed. The exterior cladding is timber; internally there is boarding. Detailed construction drawings are not available. Windows are double-sash wooden windows. Intermediate floors are timber. The roof is pitched and covered with standing-seam sheet metal with an underlay. Partition walls are timber. Interior ceilings are finished with panelling. Wall tiling is found in the kitchen, the ground-floor WC and the first-floor bathroom. Floor coverings include various types of vinyl flooring and mostly painted floorboards. The first-floor bathroom has tiled flooring.

The building has two storeys and attic space. The ground floor has operated as a café and the first floor has been in private use. Gross floor area approx. 400 m² and net floor area 256 m². The outbuilding is wooden with an area of about 14 m². The areas have not been re-measured and may differ materially from areas measured according to current regulations.

Ground lease: The ground rent is €51,200 per year until 31 December 2026. The total rent for this first partial year depends on the lease signing date. From 1 January 2027 the annual rent will be linked to the cost-of-living index so that the above annual rent of €51,200 corresponds to an index value of 2,334 (this is the January 2026 value of the cost-of-living index; base 1951: October = 100).

Rent is adjusted annually so that the previous year’s average index figure is divided by the base index figure (here 2,334) and the resulting number is multiplied by the initial annual rent stated above. Depending on changes in the cost-of-living index the rent may increase or decrease. Next year’s rent cannot be estimated at this time because the 2026 annual average index will only be known in January 2027.

Permitted use: The building is currently used as a restaurant. According to the zoning plan permitted uses include, in addition to housing, premises serving cultural activities and café operation. Any change of use and all required official permits and their costs are the buyer’s responsibility.

Energy certificate: No legally required energy certificate.

Electricity: The building is connected to the mains electricity network.

Heating: Storage electric heating and water-circulated radiator heating. The heating systems are old, estimated to date from the 1950s. Exceptions are some basement installations which date partly from the mid-1980s and the early 2000s. Fireplaces have been taken out of use. There is an air-source heat pump on the ground floor.

Ventilation: Natural (passive) ventilation.

Water and sewer: The building is connected to the municipal water and sewer system. The building’s HVAC/plumbing systems date from different decades. Extensive renewals of service water pipes and sewers were carried out in the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, but some sewers are estimated to date from the 1960s or earlier.

Condition assessment: The city commissioned a repair-needs survey on 20 August 2025 and an asbestos and hazardous materials survey on 8 October 2023 (see attachments). The buildings are sold in their current condition. The buyer is responsible at their own expense for all measures required for repair or demolition of the buildings, and for any further investigations and remediation of findings/damages in full. The city is not liable for costs arising from repair of any discovered damage nor for additional investigations related to renovation projects.

The buyer is aware that the repair-needs survey attached to the auction recommends further investigations that have not been carried out, and that the seller is not responsible for any additional investigations or for any defects or damage later found in them, including possible rot and moisture damage, possible defects in roofing and structures, possible occurrences of hazardous materials, possible defects in the supply water and sewer network, and possible damage to chimneys.

If the rental area is converted into a plot, the buyer will be responsible for the costs of forming the plot, as well as for any additional investigations related to a major renovation project.

History: The first tenant of the plot known as Tammisto was gardener Fridolf Sundstén. The villa was completed in 1900, designed by Karl Ärt. In 1911 the city signed a lease for the plot with forest manager A. Ericsson. Later the Alpine-cottage style villa received the new name Waaranto when builder Janne Waaranto acquired it in 1917. During the war a Russian Old Believer Orthodox congregation moved into the ground floor of Waaranto – Orthodox spiritual concerts are remembered to have been held at the villa already in the 1920s. The city purchased the villa in 1969. Afterwards the building was used by the association Käsityön Ystävät ry. In 1993 the villa was leased to the Kokkonen restaurateur family, who established the café-restaurant Cafe Angelica (Meilahden huvila-alueen ympäristöhistoriallinen selvitys, p. 134).

The building is protected with the designation sr-1-s: Architecturally, historically and culturally significant; the building also contains valuable interiors. The building or part of it must not be demolished, nor must repair, alteration or extension works be carried out that would weaken the building’s architectural, historical or cultural values or change the architectural characteristics. If such actions have previously been carried out on the building, repair and alteration works should, where possible, restore the building in a manner that fits its style.

A building-historical study has been prepared for the building (RHS in attachments). Restoration and repair work must be carried out in a manner that preserves the values and characteristic features presented in the RHS and the zoning protection regulations, in cooperation with the Helsinki City Museum.

Environment and zoning: The Meilahti villa district is perhaps the best-known villa area in the Helsinki region. It is a representative example of the villa culture of its time and is classified as a nationally significant built cultural environment (RKY 2009). The area surrounding the building is designated in plan 12372 (27 October 2021) with the marking VLA/s: a local recreation and residential area of cultural-historical and garden-historical significance. The area’s villas, buildings, structures, remnants of garden culture and natural environment form a valuable ensemble. The villa garden culture, the valuable features of the yards and the landscape values must be preserved. Parts of the area contain valuable forest sites. The areas must be maintained taking into account natural, landscape and cultural values. Existing trees must be preserved so that only measures necessary for nature and landscape management are permitted.