Finnish Folk Art Museum - Pasadena Museum of History

Finnish Folk Art Museum - Pasadena Museum of History
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Finnish Folk Art Museum
Presented by the Los Angeles Finlandia Foundation, a Chapter of Finlandia Foundation
National, the Finnish Folk Art Museum exhibits hand-crafted Finnish items and objects that are centuries old.
Finnish Folk Art Museum is open on the 2nd Saturday of the month from Noon to 5:00 pm. Admission is FREE
Presented by the
Los Angeles Finlandia Foundation
, a Chapter of
Finlandia Foundation National
, the Finnish Folk Art Museum exhibits hand-crafted Finnish items and objects that are centuries old.
Originally designed as a Swiss Chalet-style garage in 1910 by architect Frederick Roehrig for Arthur Fleming’s South Orange Grove property. The Fleming Estate was located between two famous neighbors, Adolphus Busch and Thaddeus Lowe. The building was purchased and moved to the Fényes Estate in 1949 by Y.A. Paloheimo, the husband of Eva Fényes’ granddaughter, Leonora (Curtin) Paloheimo. While on the Fényes Estate, it served as a guest house for Y.A., Leonora Frances and their children. In 1974, it officially became the Finnish Folk Art Museum, showcasing centuries-old, hand-crafted items mainly from the Pohjanmaa (Ostrobothnia) region in Western Finland. A highlight of the Museum is the front room, which is arranged to resemble the main room of a traditional Finnish farmhouse known as a “Tupa.”
History of the Finnish Folk Art Museum
In 1889, Canadian lumber tycoon Arthur Fleming moved to a newly built house at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue. Fleming’s property adjoined those of Adolphus Busch and Thaddeus Lowe on Pasadena’s most fashionable street, overlooking the famed Busch Garden. Fleming’s home was designed by Pasadena’s first professional architect, Frederick Roehrig. The large structure of dark wood with a huge, steeply gabled roof, described as a “Swiss chalet,” is thought to have been one of the first Craftsman-style buildings in Pasadena.
In 1910, Roehrig built a garage for Fleming located at the very back of the property, overlooking the terraced slopes of Busch Garden. In keeping with the architecture of the main house, its most distinctive feature was a wide-sloping roof made of 3-foot-long shingles held down by white rocks.
This vintage Busch Garden postcard shows the Fleming garage in the upper right corner (light brown roof).
Fleming’s residence and nearly every other grand mansion along South Orange Grove were demolished to make way for the apartment and condominium buildings that now line the boulevard. Somehow, the garage survived and was converted to living quarters in 1945. Consul Paloheimo purchased the former garage in 1949. He moved the building to the Fényes Estate, where the interior was remodeled and became a guest house and sauna. The exterior was also altered, with large plate-glass windows replacing the original doors. Paloheimo did much of the stonework and garden work around it himself.
The Fleming garage in its original location before the doors were replaced.
In 1974, the building was again remodeled and dedicated to the Finnish Folk Art Museum. With help from the Finlandia Foundation – an organization Paloheimo co-founded in 1953 to promote the culture of his native country – the building became a museum displaying artifacts typically found in a 19th-century Finnish farmhouse. Today, the Los Angeles chapter of the Finlandia Foundation oversees the presentation of the Finnish Folk Art Museum.
The building design may be Swiss, but the collection is entirely Finnish. The two main rooms house his collection of traditional woodworking, textiles, and other Finnish folk art.
The front room is styled after a “tupa,” the multi-purpose, traditional, communal living space of a family farm, with items assembled primarily from the Ostrobothnian (
Pohjanmaa
in Finnish) region of western Finland. The back room houses a wide-ranging collection of objects from all over Finland. This authentic exhibition of hand-crafted 19th-century Finnish folk objects is unusual outside Finland.
LOCATION & CONTACT
470 W. Walnut St. Pasadena, CA 91103
info@pasadenahistory.org
626.577.1660
All outdoor photography and videography requires a permit and advanced scheduling. Text 626.720.3544 to schedule any photography, commercial shoots, or filming.
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