8162 Comet Road
Embarrass, Waasa Township, MN, USA

Alex Seitaniemi Housebarn

The Alex Seitaniemi Housebarn is a rare surviving example of a log housebarn constructed by Finnish Americans, located in Waasa Township, Minnesota, United States. It was built in two stages from about 1907 to about 1913. The housebarn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 for its national significance in the themes of architecture and European ethnic heritage. It was nominated for being an example of a rare building type and for embodying the settlement and traditional log architecture of rural St. Louis County's Finnish American farmers.

The Seitaniemi Housebarn is owned and maintained by SISU Heritage Inc., a non-profit organization based in nearby Embarrass, Minnesota. It is a primary stop on the Finnish-American Homestead Tours offered in summers through the Embarrass Information Center.

Earliest history

The builder, Alex Seitaniemi, was an emigrant from Sodankylä, a small village in northern Finland. He worked in Ely, Minnesota, and later bought a parcel of land of 80 acres (32 ha). He built the housebarn in two stages from 1907 through 1913, with a two-story living quarters and the horse barn. The farm produced hay, oats, and potatoes, and they also kept dairy cows until some time after World War II, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture mandated the use of concrete floors in dairy barns for sanitary reasons.

Seitaniemi Family

Seitaniemi and his wife had a daughter and two sons, Bill and Knute. Bill and Knute never married. Knute lived in the house until he died in his 50s or 60s, while Bill lived in the house until the late 1990s.


Construction

Seitaniemi built the housebarn in two stages from 1907 through 1913, with a two-story living quarters and the horse barn. Combining the house and barn in one building provided advantages. The heat from livestock kept the house warm, and constructing one building instead of several separate buildings conserved timber and the need to move it. The compact design also leaves more room available for farming and grazing.


New owners

The property was bought by Carol and Larry Schaefer of Ely, who were interested in the land for hunting. As they got to know the history of the housebarn, they became interested in seeing its restoration. They donated the housebarn to Sisu Heritage, a local organization that provides tours of buildings and homesteads in the area. Sisu Heritage received a $60,500 grant from the Minnesota Historical and Cultural Grants program to stabilize the structure. One of the unusual aspects of the project involved stabilizing the foundation. Unlike many typical foundations, which go six feet (1.8 m) below ground level to avoid frost damage, the Seitaniemi building had footings of dry-stacked stone. This method allows the building to ride out frost heaves while still being locked together.

National Register of Historic Places - Alex Seitaniemi Housebarn

Statement of Significance:

The Seitanierai House barn is historically significant under National Register Criterion A because it is associated with the settlement and agricultural development of rural St. Louis County by Finnish immigrants around the turn of the century. It is also architecturally significant under Criterion C as an outstanding example of a building that embodies distinctive and traditional Fenno-Scandian log construction methods, and because it is the only known Finnish house barn in Minnesota and one of just two such building types in the state. This rare building represents an aberration of the second associated property type (Houses) but is included here because its primary function was to provide shelter for both humans and animals. The Seitaniemi house barn is representative of the transformation of northeastern Minnesota's cutover region into arable land by Finnish immigrants who had just arrived in the country or recently left jobs in the mining or timber industries (see associated historic contexts, The Iron Range, I880s-1930s and Northern Minnesota Lumbering, I8?0s-1930s). As an excellent illustration of a folk building executed in log, the house barn also represents the third historic context, Finnish Log Architecture, I880s-1930s. While the overall size of the Seitaniemi House barn signals a departure from the popular two-room plan, the house section nevertheless conforms to the one-room plan used by other settlers in the area. The finely crafted log walls exhibit the traditional north European construction technique and are secured by full dovetail corner joints. The rare and unusual form, a fine collection of hand-made folk artifacts (including several Vara and two broadaxes) and ownership by a direct descendant bolster the significance of the property.

The house barn was designed and built by its original owner, Alex Seitaniemi. Little is known about him except that he emigrated from Sodankyla, a village in northern Finland in what is now part of Lapland. Seitaniemi worked for a short time in Ely, Minnesota and then held a job with the Tower Lumber Co., from which he purchased his 80-acre parcel of land in Section 4 of Waasa Township. A railroad line ran near the property to the east, so it is possible that Seitaniemi supplemented his income through some type of employment associated with the railroad. It is known that he sold pulpwood to the cooperative store in Embarrass.

At some time around 1913, a 49'10"-long, two-bay addition was attached to the east side of the housebarn. The first bay (closest to the original building) is about 24 f 8" long and the same width as the housebarn. It is made of log on the lower floor and frame above, stands two stories high, features a gabled facade, and has on the lower level a wide gap in the wall as well an opening where the door to an outhouse formerly stood. The back (north) wall originally featured a pair of upright posts and two spaces where wagons could be driven to collect manure. In about 1963 vertical planks were placed over the posts and a small door and window were installed. The upper hay loft is accessible on both the front and back sides by earth ramps which lead to hinged double doors.

The final bay is a 25 f 2" x 33 f 4" poplar and tamarack log cattle barn attached to the east end to create an "L"-shape for the entire building. It too has a gable facade with a central door flanked by two 1/1 double hung windows. Identical openings pierce the north wall. A small frame structure was originally attached to the southeast corner to shelter sheep, but it was removed at an unknown date. The interior of the cattle barn is whitewashed and has eight stalls on the west side and five along the east wall. There is a well in the southeast corner. Wood plank floors are supported by three logs. Hewn logs jointed at the corners by full dovetail notches extend from the fieldstone foundation up to the eaves, where drop siding covers the upper gable walls. The gable roof of the entire building is covered with both corrugated metal and rolled asphalt.

According to Alex's bachelor son, Bill (one of three children), the family grew typical staples and crops common to St. Louis County Finns including hay, oats, and potatoes. In a good year their soil yielded 200 bushels of potatoes. Surplus cream from the 12-14 cattle was sold to the local cooperative store.

The origin of Alex Seitaniemi' s design for constructing a single building that combines the dwelling, animal shelter, and storage area for crops under a common roof is unknown. Numerous types of house barns can be found in Europe, and the concept of a multi-purpose building has been used for centuries in the British Isles and throughout the Continent including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Russia, Scandinavia, and Switzerland. While house barns continued to be an important part of the European cultural landscape, New World settlers did not maintain this traditional form of shelter. Due, in part, to their traditional arrangement of farmsteads in Finland, and an abundance of land, homesteaders chose instead to separate the house and barn and build a variety of smaller structures. But for Alex Seitaniemi, the need to protect his family, livestock, and crops from northern Minnesota's harsh climate and predatory animals may have influenced his decision to erect such a functional building.

By locating the family's living space and bedroom next to the animals, the children and parents were able to take advantage of radiant heat from the cattle and horses in the adjacent pen. Hay stored above the livestock in the mow also served as an effective insulator against bitterly cold winter temperatures.

Despite its widespread use as a building tradition on the Continent, few house barns were constructed in the New World. Of the fifteen or twenty house barns known to have been built in America, all of them are in the Upper Midwest and Great Plains states of Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Interestingly, nearly all these buildings were constructed by German or Czech-Bohemian immigrants. The Seitanierai House barn is one of just three house barns in the United States known to have been built by a Finn (the other two originally stood in Michigan's Upper Peninsula).

The same high-quality design and workmanship evident in other Finnish log buildings is executed in the Seitaniemi house barn. The dovetailed walls are extremely smooth and tight, indicating the expertise of the builder and his familiarity with woodworking tools. The house barn retains excellent integrity of location, setting, feeling, and association because only one other major building stands on the property, and the adjoining agricultural land remains cleared of trees.