The small story
behind a quiet place
Two founders, four staff, twelve hectares of pine, and one deliberate decision a year — for ten years.
Six cottages,
twelve hectares, ten years
We bought the land in the autumn of 2016 — twelve hectares of pine and birch on the southern edge of Ladoga, a steep path down to the water and not much else. The original plan was modest: one cottage for our family and another for guests. The plan changed slowly, with the seasons.
The first guest cottage opened in the summer of 2018. The ritual sauna and the boathouse followed in 2019. We added the Forest Kitchen in 2021, and the last two cottages — Oak and Spruce — in 2024 and 2025. The property is finished now, in the sense that we have stopped adding things. Most of the rooms still get one more coat of paint a year.
What we kept the same from the first plan: the cottages are spaced forty meters apart, the windows face the trees rather than each other, and the path to the lake stays unpaved. What changed: almost everything else.
What we kept
the same
Four small decisions we made early and have not changed. Most days on the property, they are the reason for the next decision.
- 01On the land
We build slowly
Each cottage takes nearly a year to finish. The wood is cut in winter and dried for two summers before it goes in. We are not in a hurry — the forest has been here much longer than we have.
- 02In the rooms
One palette, kept simple
Linen, oak, cast iron, wool. We chose these once and have not changed them. New cottages get the same fabrics as the first cottage. Replacements look like what they replace.
- 03At the lake
The water comes first
Everything we built on the property is in service of the lake — the path stays unpaved, the cottages are set back from the shore, and the boathouse keeps the only artificial light close to the water.
- 04With our guests
Less, but better
Six cottages, a small reception, two saunas, one kitchen. We turned down a tenth cottage twice. We will probably keep turning it down.
Ten years,
in seven small steps
The property was built one season at a time. No two cottages went up the same year, and most of the smaller things took longer than the cottages themselves.
- 012014
First weekend on the land
Anna and Mikko spend the long Easter weekend in a borrowed tent at the edge of what is now the clearing.
- 022016
Land purchase
The plot is bought from a small forestry cooperative in Sortavala — twelve hectares of pine and birch, with a steep stone path down to Ladoga.
- 032018
First guest cottage
Cottage Pine opens to its first three guests on the summer solstice. The walls are still drying.
- 042019
Ritual sauna & boathouse
The lakeside sauna and the small boathouse open the same week. Two kayaks arrive by mail order from Tampere.
- 052021
Forest Kitchen
Liisa takes over the kitchen barn and turns it into the Forest Kitchen. The pour-over bar and the breakfast basket service start the same month.
- 062025
Final cottages: Oak & Spruce
The two largest cottages open in the same summer. The property is, finally, complete.
- 072026
Today
Six cottages, two saunas, one kitchen, and a small reception. We are not adding anything else.
Four people,
one sauna master
Year-round, this is who you will meet. We keep the team small on purpose — most days a guest is welcomed by the same person who cooks their breakfast.
- AL01Founder & host
Anna Lehto
Picks the linen, hosts the table, and writes most of the letters you receive from us. Studied architecture in Helsinki and worked at a press in Berlin before moving north.
- ML02Founder & property steward
Mikko Lehto
Builds, plans, and tends. Studied forestry, spent a decade restoring wooden churches in Karelia. Knows every tree on the property by name.
- LS03Head of the kitchen
Liisa Salmi
Runs the Forest Kitchen. Trained in Helsinki and Copenhagen. Bakes the bread, fires the stove, and writes a small note on every breakfast basket.
- PA04Sauna master
Petteri Aho
Tends the ritual sauna and the firewood. A retired schoolteacher from Sortavala who knows when the löyly is right by feel alone.
Three quiet
readings of us
We are mentioned in writing now and then. We have only kept the three pieces that read like the place actually feels.
- 01Cereal MagazineIssue 24, 2024
The property reads as a single, very long sentence about restraint — every cottage is in conversation with the next, but never raises its voice.
- 02Wallpaper*March 2025
An exercise in deliberate slowness. The Lehtos have built the kind of place that quietly resists everything modern hospitality has decided is necessary.
- 03KinfolkVol. 47
The ritual sauna alone would be reason enough to come. Then the breakfast arrives in a linen basket and you understand why people stay two weeks.