In 2001, a massive four-storey building with 39 apartments, the so-called Supeluse House, was completed here, designed by the architectural firm J. Okas & M. Lõoke. However, it was not the first house on this site, nor the first apartment building planned here..

House of the Fridolins

On a large plot of land on the edge of Supeluse and Esplanaadi streets, Pärnu barn-keeper Jüri Fridolin built a small wooden house in 1835. The man died young, and the property was inherited by his large family with many children, who owned it for more than a hundred years.

From the late 19th century, the family of Fridolin’s daughter Bertha lived in the house. Bertha Luise Fridolin married Heinrich Schwartz in 1896. In the 1920s, Bertha’s two spinster sisters, Emilie and Adelheid Fridolin, who had returned from Russia, moved into small rooms on the second floor of the house. Heinrich Schwartz, the father of the family, died in 1926. The house was expropriated by the Soviet authorities from their daughter, Erika Schwartz.

The building was nationalised, because a well-located site on the border between the coastal district and the city centre was to be given a public function. First, the city’s executive committee planned a large competitive sports hall here, which could also be used for propaganda and political events. Then a 250-seat self-service cafeteria was planned to serve summer visitors. However, as they couldn’t manage to start with the construction, most of the plot was used as a school garden for Secondary School II.

Koidula scholl garden

Probably in 1952, it was decided to give the Fridolin family’s large garden to the Pärnu Lydia Koidula Secondary School II as a school garden. At the initiative of the enthusiastic director Jüri Erm, a plan was drawn up that included an orchard, berry bushes, a vegetable and field crop section, as well as a rock garden, flower beds and an outdoor education classroom.

School gardens had an important task in Soviet schools − to introduce children to the basics of Michurinian agrobiology, to give them practical experience in growing plants, and also to develop a love of work in students. The major work in the school garden took place in the spring before the exams. During the summer, brigades were formed of students living in the town, each brigade working 2-3 hours a day for a week.

Unbuilt high-rise building

By 1974, a new grandiose project for the construction of a 9-storey tower block was completed in the Pärnu department of the Estonian Rural Construction Project, commissioned by the Executive Committee. The initial sketch was prepared by Jüri Jaama, an architect whose perhaps most notable work was the Pärnu KEK administrative building, completed in collaboration with Andres Ringo. The street level of the planned apartment building was to house a larger grocery store, which was missing in the area, and which, as customary for Pärnu, was to bear the name of a twin town (in this case, “Vaasa”). Most importantly, this high-rise was to become the first apartment building with a lift in Pärnu. Although the archaic Fridolin family house was now demolished, the construction of the high-rise kept being delayed.

The site stood empty until the end of the Soviet era, except for a small meteorological station located at the back. It was not until 2001 that a massive four-storey building with 39 apartments, the so-called Supeluse House, was completed here, designed by the architectural firm J. Okas & M. Lõoke. The Supeluse House was built and sold by FKSM. The house received its cornerstone in February 2001 and the first phase was completed by the summer. The second part of the house was completed a year later. And Supeluse House was sold as the first apartment building with a lift in Pärnu!