Rental Villa in Koli
From Vaarinkallio Villa, vast views open up over the great Lake Pielinen – a landscape that sparks the imagination. The villa is located near Koli’s breathtakingly beautiful national scenery and its diverse nature trails.
You will enjoy complete privacy at the spacious and luxurious Vaarinkallio Villa, set on its own 14-hectare plot. The rocky lakeside views framed by the large windows create a natural dialogue with the open and cozy log house. The unique atmosphere of the villa and its sauna will stay with you for years to come.
Our Story
Vaarinkallio continues the story of Vastuolahti estate, which Juho Sutinen, a former farmhand in Ahmovaara, Juuka, purchased for his family in the early 1900s with a loan guaranteed by his employer. Juho married Leena Mustonen, and the family’s livelihood depended on hard work at the pioneering farm. Rocky wilderness and boggy marshland were cleared to grow grain.
Juho and Leena’s life was built on faith that reflected the harsh Finnish landscape and its rapidly changing weather. Life was poor and modest, but faith gave a foundation for hope in the future. Juho held Sunday school for the village children, and many visitors from afar signed the guestbook of the small farm.
It was not only the unpredictable weather or the stony soil that put the Sutinen family’s faith to the test. Eemeli, one of the first children, died young, and Erkki – who had attended distance upper secondary school and carried the family’s hopes for a brighter future – was killed as a young second lieutenant at the beginning of the Winter War. Before that, diabetes had taken Juho at not yet sixty years of age.
But life had to go on. To help mother Leena, Juho’s brother Antti – a fisherman with time for the growing children – stepped in. Over the years, the daughters Liina, Anna, and Leena moved with their husbands to live on the eastern side of Lake Pielinen, in Eno and Lieksa. Of the sons, Toivo traveled as far as Turku for work, but in the 1970s he too settled in Lieksa to start his own family. Onni and Ensio remained on the farm until the early 1970s, when they moved to a more prosperous place in the village of Koli.
The youngest of the children, Allan – Ensio’s twin brother – was sent on an educational path: first to secondary school in Lieksa and later to study theology in Helsinki. Allan was ordained as a priest in 1958 and lived in this calling until his death in 1989, serving as chaplain in Eurajoki.
Vaarinkallio is a 14-hectare estate separated from Vastuolahti. It is currently owned by Allan’s son Erkki, a professor in information technology and a priest. A school path runs through Vaarinkallio, the same one Allan and his siblings once walked to attend elementary school.
With Vaarinkallio, the story of the school path continues anew. Vaarinkallio is a place of discovery, where life is still carried by faith, hope, and love.
And the greatest of these is love.
Welcome to Vaarinkallio,
The Sutinen Family
