The Villa of Eteläkatu 5 street is one of its six wooden houses. Originally the Villa was built as the home of the Tuomi entrepreneur family, which owned and lived in the property until the start of the 1980s. A layout change in the 1961 changed the wooden house row into a parking and median strip while also prohibiting all renovation work that would increase the property value for decades.
On the dawn of the 1980s, the city claimed all wooden houses of Eteläkatu to build a parking lot according to the layout. Eteläkatu 5 property was claimed from Matti and Maija Tuomi by the city in 1981.
Soon after the Villas were claimed by the city, the talk of preserving, renovating, and protecting the houses begun. The future of the Villas were uncertain for nearly 20 years – during which the fate of the house row was regularly brought up by the municipality agenda and the local newspaper. During those 20 years, Eteläkatu 5 functioned as English-speaking day-care and afterwards as the developing country store Kirahvi.
