Tamminiemi is a villa and house museum located in the Meilahti district of Helsinki, Finland. It was one of the three official residences of the President of Finland, from 1940 until 1981. From 1956, until his death, it served as the residence of President Urho Kekkonen. Since 1987, it has been the Urho Kekkonen Museum. It is located in a park by the sea. Tamminiemi's floor area is about ; living quarters comprise the first two floors while the third floor is dedicated to office space. Designed by architectsSigurd Frosterus and Gustaf Strengell, the Jugendstil villa was built in 1904 for the Danish-born businessman Jörgen Nissen. The villa was later owned or rented by a number of individuals, before being acquired by the publisher and artistic patron Amos Anderson in 1924. Anderson donated Tamminiemi to the Finnish state in 1940, to serve as a presidential residence. Although PresidentsRisto Ryti and C. G. E. Mannerheim did reside at Tamminiemi, while President J. K. Paasikivi preferred to use the Presidential Palace as his official residence during his presidency, the villa is particularly associated with President Kekkonen—due in large part to the fact that it was his official residence and home for around thirty years; during his period in office between 1956 and 1981, before becoming his privatenursing home until his death in 1986. In 1987, Tamminiemi was transformed into the Urho Kekkonen Museum. It is furnished the way it was in Kekkonen's time in the 1970s. In 1989, construction of the new presidential residence called Mäntyniemi started. An extensive renovation of Tamminiemi began in 2009 and was completed in 2012. The renovation restored the original exterior colouring and decorative motifs of the 1904 villa. Building technology was renewed, interior surfaces were cleaned and broken spots repaired, while preserving the minor signs of age-related wear, emphasizing the patina of Urho Kekkonen's time. Tamminiemi also has a famous sauna in a separate building which Kekkonen built after being elected president in 1956. The sauna also includes a swimming pool and a recreation room with a fireplace. Kekkonen used the sauna facilities to entertain his domestic and foreign guests, including the Soviet leaderNikita Khrushchev. Nowadays the sauna can be rented for private events but availability is very restricted due to the sauna's cultural and historical value.
