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.

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.

A rooftop deck and backyard provide outdoor space for the four-bedroom house.

During the pandemic, Ilkka has been working from an office on the third floor while Sara works from the quartz-topped breakfast bar in the kitchen. She is a sixth- and seventh-grade English and social studies teacher at General George Meade School in North Philadelphia. Ilkka is vice president of ticketing for the Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo Center. He played recreational hockey in his youth and in college.

Sara and Ilkka moved to their home in 2018. They could have bought a similar house down the street a year earlier, Ilkka said, but they waited to build on the lot across the street from the Acts of the Apostles Church. It was built in 1891 as St. Ludwig’s German Catholic Church to serve German immigrant workers in the breweries that once were prevalent in the area.

When they are not caring for their daughters or working at their laptops, Sara and Ilkka can gaze out the oversize windows of their new home with its sleek beige brick façade and admire the Gothic peaked arched windows of the stone church across the street.

The couple may not want to live in a 19th-century building, but they can admire one from afar.

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