This manor takes its name from Pärnu town councillor Claus Zinte, who in 1565 received lands along the Pärnu River from King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland, most likely as a reward for his role in a conspiracy against the Swedish garrison during the struggle for control of Pärnu. The estate later passed to Zinte’s son, Conrad, and came to be known by their family name as Zintenhof, or Sindi Manor in Estonian.
The manor changed owners several times in the following centuries, being leased in 1832 to Johann Christoph Wöhrmann, a Riga-born merchant and industrialist. Originally from Lübeck, the Wöhrmann family retained the manor until the end of the century. Wöhrmann’s most significant contribution was the establishment of a cloth factory, built in 1834, on the lands of the former village of Saia, which belonged to the manor. The settlement that grew up around the factory adopted the manor’s name and is still known today as the town of Sindi.
In 1860, Johann Christoph’s son, Christian Heinrich Wöhrmann, purchased Sindi Manor outright from the state, having previously leased it. Alongside the cloth factory, he turned greater attention to developing the estate itself, establishing several auxiliary manors in the surrounding area. In 1893 Sindi Manor was sold at public auction to the land councillor Wilhelm Stael von Holstein, from whom in turn Sindi, Wöhrmannshof and
In 1919 the manor was nationalised and its lands divided up into settlement farms. The county government also planned to establish a children’s shelter in the manor. However, this took some time to open, and required quite a lot of investment, as the old manor buildings were in very poor condition. With state funding, around half of the main manor house was renovated by 1922, allowing the first eight children to be accommodated there. Admission to the Sindi orphanage was arranged through municipal councils, and the home accepted children aged 4-16.
In 1925, reorganisation was undertaken: the Pärnu County Shelter for the Feebleminded, which was facing a shortage of space in Voltveti, was relocated to Sindi Manor, while the children’s home moved to Voltveti. The manor now became a home for those unable to care for themselves. In addition to the main house, the former manor barn was converted for residents’ use, becoming the so-called “women’s house”.
The institution continued to operate during the Soviet era under the name of the Sindi Home for the Disabled (also known as the Sindi Psychochronic Home), and was transferred in its entirety from there to Koluvere in 1963.
The empty rooms of the former shelter were used to establish Sindi Special Vocational School No. 35, based on the former Pärnu Juvenile Colony. Operating from 1965-1990, the school provided vocational training for adolescents aged 14-18 with behavioural difficulties, initially in metalworking and later also in painting and woodworking.
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