Friends of the Seitaniemi Housebarn

02/16/2025

To people who are viewing this page for professional information about construction details: I have over 1000 additional photos available that were taken of original construction details. Many times I have offered them to Sisu as well as their architects and never seriously been approached for sharing them in over a decade. These photos include detailed scaled images of the original opening locations and framing details of these openings. These photos have been offered every few years to individual board members.

01/21/2014

The Sisu Heritage, Inc. annual meeting is on sunday, February 23, 2:00p.m., at the Embarrass Townhall. Come out and hear a report on work that has been done on the housebarn, as well as plans for 2014, now that we have received the Minnesota Historical Society grant.
Aaron Hautala, photographer for the book, "The Opposite of Cold", will be our featured speaker, talking about saunas.
there will be refreshments and door prizes, as well.

12/17/2013

Sisu got an early Christmas present. Notification came in today's mail that they received a $142,000 Legacy Grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. It is slightly less than requested in the application, but will allow the roof to be completed, the milking parlor floor and stalls, the ramps to the loft area and some other misc work. The budget will have to be modified somewhat to reflect the lower amount, but we got a big part of what we wanted to make good progress towards the restoration of the Seitaniemi housebarn.

2014 will be a great year for the project.

09/09/2013

Community night out was a great success. We had about the same number of people as last year, some the same and many new folks. We sold out of chili! The music was excellent and enjoyed by all. The building gets a lot of interest with many people marveling at the construction and especially the amount of work that farm must have taken to operate with just manual labor and horses.

The rain threatened and even sprinkled towards the end, but it didn't appear to dampen the interest.

07/17/2013

Community Night Out at the Seitaniemi homestead: Sunday, September 8, 4:00p.m.-7:00p.m. Come see the progress on the housebarn restoration, walk through the barn, and talk to the project manager and contractor. You will also be able to listen to live music by Cowboy Angel Blue. Chili, corn bread, pie, pop, coffee, and bottled water will be available to purchase. Bring a lawn chair or blanket and enjoy a great time at the homestead! Sisu Heritage, Inc. is sponsoring this event, with help from our business sponsors, Benville Service and the Embarrass Vermillion Federal Credit Union. There is no fee, but donations will be accepted for the housebarn restoration.

06/09/2013

No updated photos, but the structure has weathered another winter just fine. Favet Designs was out there this past week to do a final cleanup as they finished after the snow had covered things and they wanted to clean up sawdust piles and the few scattered pieces of scrap wood that got missed. The remainder of the new Tamarac logs from the last two years were sorted to cull out the unusable crooked ones and get them ultimately off the site and out of our way.

The newly cut logs are still at the landing. The road restrictions came off just two weeks ago and our trucker is working frantically to get logs out of the woods for everyone. We are scheduled for this Friday. We have some real beauties out of this cut.

05/26/2013

As part of our Finnish-American Summer Festival at the Timber Hall on Saturday, June 8, there will be an open house at the Seitaniemi Housebarn site from 12:00-3:00p.m. Our project manager, Leone Graf, will be there to show you around and answer questions. Maps will be available at the Sisu Heritage table during the festival.

04/13/2013

We've had some interest from some Finnish friends. Are you relatives?

04/13/2013

I was hoping for some spring photos of the barn by now. Alas, we've had 12-15" of snow in the past week with another 4-8" on the way tomorrow and Monday. We are waiting for spring and the road restrictions to come off so we can move the approximately 20 nice tree length logs that were harvested at the Knuti's this winter. These are slated for the floor joists in the cow parlor, the housebarn and the ramps. Obviously, we are still looking for more, but these will get us started.

02/08/2013

Favet Designs has finished the current contract on Phase II. The building is protected from the weather with temporary sheeting over the walls where the siding had to be removed. Sisu had been hoping for some more money for this summer, but we've been turned down for two grants. Paul is working on another grant. We will try again for another Legacy grant for next year. We are looking for more money in every nook and cranny that we can. At least the building has all of the really bad structural problems fixed and it is fully weatherized.

02/08/2013

12/07/2012

THe work is continuing. Matt has been out there cleaning up the site and buttoning up the building for the winter. Sisu will be burning the large burn piles, probably next week. We need to have at least 3"of snow on the ground and mild winds. We had the snow,but no time to burn it last week. The snow mostly melted Sunday/Monday. We have another shot of snow this weekend.