Some of our homebuyers were just profiled about their home, part of our Brewers Mill townhome development in Brewerytown.
Creating an airy, Scandinavian style in a new home in Brewerytown
Sara Kortesluoma loves Finland — the country, its architecture, its saunas and its people, especially her husband, Ilkka.
The couple met their senior year in high school when Sara, who grew up in Lackawanna County, was a Rotary Club exchange student in Finland. Communication was not a problem; Ilkka had studied English since he was 10. During their six-year courtship, Sara spent her junior year at the University of Scranton abroad in Finland, and Ilkka spent his senior year of college studying sports management at Finlandia University in Michigan, a school founded by Finnish immigrants.
They married in Finland in 2006 and moved to Philadelphia the following year.
They lived in apartments until their first child was born, and then they began house hunting. Philadelphia’s familiar 19th-century red brick rowhouse “was not our aesthetic,” Sara said. She and Ilkka wanted an airy Scandinavian-style home with white walls, hardwood floors and large windows. (…)
They discovered that David Ross, a partner with Argo Property Group, was building such houses in Brewerytown. Ross, who had lived in Denmark for a time, appreciated the couple’s needs. He customized their three-story rowhouse, reconfiguring space on the third floor to accommodate a sauna in the main bathroom.
Saunas are part of Finnish culture and considered integral to Finns’ well-being. Ilkka ordered a sauna made of hemlock from a manufacturer in Minnesota and supervised its installation. He, Sara and their daughters Asta, 1, and Viivi, 4, spend family time in the sauna, which is heated with an electric stove. The eucalyptus, birch and smoke-scented essential oils they use remind them of the wood-stove saunas in Finland.
The family reconfigured space on the third floor to accommodate a sauna in the main bathroom. For Finns, saunas are part of the culture and integral to their well-being.
Sara has furnished the home with contemporary pieces, such as the two Barcelona-style chairs in the living room purchased from a boutique in Connecticut, and gray couches in the living and TV room from Crate & Barrel. The colorful Flor carpet in the basement TV and playroom was assembled from washable squares that can be replaced when they become worn.
The black-and-white painting by Matt DeProspero in the TV room depicts an old windmill in Jalasjärvi, the agricultural town where Ilkka grew up. A painting of the capital city, Helsinki, by the same artist hangs above the marble-topped coffee table in the living room.
In the kitchen, Ross installed Scandinavian-style high-gloss gray cabinets that Sara requested. The cabinets have become popular with his other clients, she said.
