Hestia Hotel Barons is right in the heart of the UNESCO listed Old Town of Tallinn and occupies two buildings: a historical main building in an art nouveau style former bank building that has been renovated as an elegant boutique hotel and a classical side building in an elegant 15th-century house. The buildings have exciting history, but your accommodation will lack no modern comforts. The best restaurants, boutiques, day spas and museums of Tallinn are just a few minutes away.
About the hotel
History of the historical main building
Karja Street is one of the oldest streets of the Old Town of Tallinn. It has preserved its original Estonian name throughout centuries. Karja Street (Herd Street) was indeed used to herd the livestock of the residents of Tallinn and Toompea to the pastures and the waterhole which was located across from the present Allika Street near Tatari Street. The waterhole also supplied the town with water. The street started from the old marketplace and ran, as it is now, up to the corner of Vana-Posti Street where it made a turn to the left, heading through Karjavärav (Herd Gate) to the direction of the present Estonia Avenue. The last section of the street is nowadays called Georg Otsa Street. According to records, the street was called Karienstrade in 1305 and later Grosse Karristrasse. Since 1776 it was known as Michaelis Strasse and in the period of harsh Russification as Suur-Mihhailovskaja (Bolshaja Mihailovskaja). Since the establishment of the Republic of Estonia in 1918 the name of the street has been Suur-Karja.
The lot of the present Barons hotel was initially occupied by two medieval buildings, one of which was a warehouse. According to the renowned historian Heino Gustavson here was a brewery called “Revalia”. Gustavson wrote in 1995: “A brewery of the Pfaff family, later known as “Revalia” brewery was started in 1832 on the corner of Suur-Karja and Väike-Karja streets. Now it is a bank. The owner of the brewery G. W. Pfaff was a local merchant. In 1858 the production was moved across the street to a former small brewery which was rebuilt and extended.
The hotel has 65 elegantly furnished rooms.
A design plan from the beginning of the 19th century, which is drawn on a tracing cloth containing fine cotton threads, has on the upper left corner a text in Russian (rough translation):
“We ask for the permission to build on the basis of this design plan a 4-storey stone building with a mansard roof into the plot of land belonging to the Riga Commercial Bank, portals No 2/7 and plot No 476 on the corner of Suur-Mihhailovskaja and Väike-Mihhailovskaja streets in the 4th part of the city of Revel”.”
Thus, on 12 May 1911 the Russian Commercial Bank commissioned the construction of a 4-storey stone building with a mansard roof on the corner of Suur-Mihhailovskaja and Väike-Mihhailovskaja streets. The building was designed by a Russian architect of Polish origin Aleksander Jaron. The building was designed in the neoclassical style – in between the historical and Jugend styles. A. Jaron won the first prize in the 1912 competition of the design of the city hall. Unfortunately the project was never materialised. His other works of the beginning of the 20th century include the buildings at 15 Estonia Avenue and 50 Narva Road.
The ground floor of the building was occupied by shops; the bank’s premises were on the first floor and large flats on the upper floors. A semi-spiral staircase with an oak rail decorated by a wooden sculpture of a woman were designed by a Baltic German architect Ernst Kühnert and an Englishman Paul Meyer and built during the renovation works of 1922. At that time, the building belonged to the Estonian Bank of Industry and Commerce. At the same time a large vault with armoured door was built in the basement and a lift with brass net boarding was installed. The lift took passengers from the ground floor to the second floor.
A revolving door was installed in 1932 when the building was occupied by Tallinn City Bank. A total of 13 banks have operated in the building over years.
The building suffered a slight damage in the 1970ies – some boys filled the lift with cardboard boxes, lit the boxes and sent the lift to the basement. Smoke from burning boxes rose through the lift shaft to the attic and the fire fighters who had hurried to the scene climbed first upstairs, losing a lot of valuable time. Luckily, only the lift was destroyed. To prevent delinquents from getting in the inner yard the gateway was closed with a metal gate that cost the price of the smallest Russian car of the time – Zaporozhets.
In the mid-1970ies there was a tobacco shop in the Väike-Karja Street side of the building.
In 1977-78 the renovating works started in the buildings. The residents of the 4th and 5th floors were forced to move out with strong backing of the government. The moving out revealed many odd facts – a former bank employee had painted the oak parquet with red ship paint. One of the residents, a son of the then first deputy chairman of the council of ministers tried to dismantle two Art Nouveau style fireplaces and “deposit” them in his home. Sometime after the 2nd World War the oak rail of the staircase was covered with black oven varnish.
In order to avoid such things, the building and most of its interior details are today protected under heritage conservation.
In the course of roof repair works in 1982 interesting documents were found under the wind shelter. Fortunately the workers did not throw them away and delivered the documents to the author. These were banking records from the period from 1897 to 1910. Rumour has it that secret documents were hidden in the walls and that the safe in the wall between the restaurant and the office of the last bank manager also contains secret documents. The key to the safe has not been found by today.
The last owner of the building before hotel was Eesti Ühispank and the building was unoccupied for more than four years. In 2001 the building was bought by a hotelier and after a year, the renovation of the building commenced. Barons Hotel was opened for customers in May 2003 and the official opening festivities were held on 1 October 2003.
A chronological list of the main users of the building:
1912-1917 Tallinn (Revel) branch of Riga Commercial Bank
1920-1929 Estonian Bank of Industry and Commerce
1929-1931 Estonian Commercial bank
1931-1940 Tallinn City Bank
1940-1941 Communal Bank of the Estonian SSR
1941-1944 Revalier Stadtbank
1944-1959 Communal Bank of the Estonian SSR
1959-1987 Estonian office of the Bank of Industry and Building of the Soviet Union
1988-1990 Estonian branch of the Bank of Industry and Building of the Soviet Union
1990-1996 Estonian Commercial Bank of Industry and Building (Eesti Tööstuspank)
1996-1998 (June) Eesti Hoiupank
1998 (June)-1998 (September) Hansapank
Since 1998 Eesti Ühispank, who did not take the building into use and sold it in 2001