Moisio Manor: A Historic Estate in Kouvola, Finland
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Finland
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page4 sections
History
Moisio Manor is an estate in the village of Moisio, in Elimäki within Kouvola, Finland. Its foundation is dated to 1820, and its main building is in the Empire style, a European form of Neoclassicism prominent in the early nineteenth century.
Estate origins and the manor
The estate’s history reaches back to 1608, when land in Elimäki was granted to the Wrede af Elimä family. The Peippola, Moisio, and Mustila estates later formed part of Fabian Fabianinpoika Wrede’s inheritance. His only son and heir, General Fabian Casimir Wrede, sold them in 1767 to Jacob af Forselles, mayor of Loviisa. Af Forselles also held the honorary title of commercial counsellor, given in Finland to distinguished businesspeople. His grandson, Major Frederik af Forselles, commissioned Moisio Manor’s present main building.
Private and municipal ownership
After Frederik’s son Theodor’s sawmill business failed, the manor was sold at auction in 1880 to Count Berg, a nephew of a former governor-general. Berg’s son sold it to the municipality of Elimäki, which owned the property from 1907 until 2009. Following Elimäki’s merger, Kouvola owned the manor from 2009 to 2022. In May 2022, banker Henrik Andersin, chairman of Evli Pankki, bought it from the city.
Remains
The manor forms part of the Elimäki manor-house and cultivated landscape. Its main building was designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, a German-born architect who worked in Finland and is associated with Finnish Neoclassical architecture.
