Hot Spot for Folk Art : Diplomat’s Sauna Is Now Home of Finnish Museum

It was one of the steamiest spots in Pasadena.

Built on the grounds of the Fenyes estate, on which stood one of the grandest mansions along Pasadena’s historic “millionaire’s row,” the tiny building served as a sauna and guest house for the late Yuri Paloheimo, Finnish consul general for the southwestern United States for 18 years.

Today, the 1905 mansion is occupied by the Pasadena Historical Society, and the tiny guest house out back is a little-known and unlikely addition to the exhibits of Old Pasadena society. It is the Finnish Folk Art Museum, which features traditional crafts and furniture of Paloheimo’s homeland. Some of the pieces are as much as 200 years old.

But the most important feature of any Finnish house is the sauna. When the Paloheimo family used it, stones were heated by fire to 212 degrees. The bathers would throw water onto the hot stones, and steam would rise and evaporate into the wooden walls as birch twigs sent their sweet smell wafting through the air.

The practice of taking a sauna began in Finland as a religious ritual and still retains some of its spiritual connotations, visitors are told by the volunteer docents who staff the museum.

“Finnish people build a sauna before they build a house,” said Melba Miller, a docent who is also an authority on Finnish history.

Among the esoteric facts offered to visitors is that the Finns have rules for sauna etiquette. One requires people to be quiet once inside the dry-heat bath. “Finnish parents tell their children that taking a sauna is like being in church,” Miller explained. “There is no talking or laughing. They must be respectful.”

For Finns, the sauna is a place where body and soul are cleansed. Before there were hospitals, Finnish babies were born in saunas because they were considered such clean places, Miller said. And, she added, old people went to the sauna to die.

Paloheimo brought the custom of the sauna with him to America when he moved with his wife, Leonora, onto the estate she inherited from her grandfather, a medical doctor and entomologist. Paloheimo had his sauna installed in a building resembling a small Swiss chalet, which he acquired from a neighbor and moved to his land in the 1960s.

The Paloheimos donated the estate to the Historical Society in 1970 after Finland moved the consulate to San Francisco and the couple moved to New Mexico. In the meantime, Paloheimo had filled the guest house and sauna with Finnish artifacts from his own collection and, on trips to Finland, acquired new items to re-create the interior of a three-room 19th-Century Finnish farmhouse.

Those who come today to view the antique furnishings, artwork and historical displays in the main mansion, as well as Dr. Adelbert Fenyes’ beetle collection, may be surprised to learn of the rustic, and somewhat out-of-context, exhibit outside. The Folk Art Museum is reached by a leafy trail and its exterior still has the look of a Swiss chalet.

Off the sauna there are two small rooms filled with wooden furniture, cooking utensils, corner cupboards, baskets, intricately carved sculptures and wall hangings. There are even slippers made from wood.

“Everybody is a wood carver in Finland,” said another docent, Rosalie Gerber. “During those long winter nights, they have to find something to do.”

The front room is a re-created tupa, or smoke cabin. It has an open stone hearth commonly used for cooking and heating. The room also was used for sleeping and living and has a double-decker bed covered by woven striped textiles called Raanu.

Chairs traditionally carved by the father of a household to use as bridal gifts for his daughters decorate the tupa. The room also features hand-painted cupboards dating from the 17th Century, cooking utensils and a 19th-Century clock made by the Konni family (the most famous clockmakers in Finland).

The third room displays a spinning wheel--a common engagement gift given by men to their betrothed. It also has a ryijy (pronounced ree-ya), the best-known of Finnish textile products. Made in 1801, the shaggy rug hangs on the wall in the museum, but was traditionally used as a bedcover or on a horse-drawn sleigh.

“The ryijy is an important status symbol in Finnish culture,” Miller said. “A family’s wealth was estimated in terms of the number of rugs they owned.”

The room also is filled with items used in the sauna, including water buckets and ladles made from birch.

The museum, 470 W. Walnut St., is open Thursdays through Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and students and free for children 12 and under.