In 1928, Elias Wesset, the founder and owner of the Pärnu sweets factory “Progress”, acquired the building site separated from Emma Schmidt’s property on the corner of Supeluse and Promenaadi streets. He intended to build a three-storey summer villa there. 

Elias Wesset (1871-1943), from Vitebsk Province, married Ida, daughter of Jeremiah Krakusen, in Pärnu in 1903. He established his own company here − a sweets factory, which became the largest and longest-established company in the field. 

Sweets factory “Progress” 

After the end of World War I, Wesset’s sweets factory continued to operate under the registered name “Progress” on Malmö Street in the old town of Pärnu. Among growing competition, he added prefixes over time, and it became the First Pärnu Sweets Factory “Progress”. In 1925, the facility, which had only produced caramels and sweets, started to produce chocolate and, allegedly, was the first to produce cocoa powder in Estonia. Then the company’s full name became the First Pärnu Chocolate, Cocoa and Sweets Factory “Progress” E. Vesset. By the end of the decade, Wesset had gained a considerable market share and his products were sold throughout the country. 

In 1928, he bought a building plot in the best spot of the coastal district, at the corner of Supeluse and Promenaadi streets. In the same year, he commissioned a building project from the city’s most renowned architectural office, E. Wolffeldt and A. Nürnberg. As the city architect considered a three-storey building inappropriate for this area, Wesset had to limit himself to two full floors and small rooms on the attic floor. 

The building was constructed with intermittent success and was not completed until 1931. The owner himself stayed in an apartment near his factory on Malmö Street, while his eldest son Jeremiah and his family, and later his youngest son Max, moved into the new house on Supeluse Street. Some of the apartments were left for summer rentals. 

The Wessets and their sons were a well-known and respected family in the town. The sons were volunteer firefighters, core members of the Pärnu Firefighting Society’s 6th Division and the leaders of the fire brigade. The Pärnu Volunteer Firefighting Society was one of the oldest and most honourable in the city, founded in 1866, and its 6th division was made up of fellow Jewish citizens. Jeremiah Wesset, who lived in the capital after the war, became one of the leaders of the volunteer firefighters in the Tallinn Firefighting Association. 

Hair Industry Marcel 

In addition to the apartments, the building had commercial premises − on the first floor, with an entrance from Supeluse Street, Estonia’s first cooperative hairdressing salon equipped with the newest technology was opened before the building was completed. It was opened by the Pärnu Hairdressers’ Association and named “Marcel” after the eponymous French hairdresser who was the inventor of the ultra-fashionable Marcel Wave. 

The Pärnu Hairdressers’ Association, which brought together local hairdressers and barbers, was founded in 1923. The association monitored compliance with working hours, including ensuring that only those with the skills and the appropriate professional certificate worked in the workshops, while also organising courses and being a kind of social association. In addition to the hair salon, various confectioners and cafés also operated on the first floor over the years. 

Finnish-language advertisement for the first-rate hair industry in the Vaba Maa newspaper: Pärnu edition, 14 June 1930 

Nationalisation 

Elias Wesset’s factory was nationalised in 1940 and continued to operate under Soviet conditions for the time being. Wesset, as a major entrepreneur, was deported to Sverdlovsk Oblast on 14 June 1941, where he died in Sevurrallag at the age of 71. 

During the subsequent German occupation, the factory stopped working, and its last manager, Albert-Johannes Vaikla, was shot by the Germans. On 13 July 1941, Wesset’s sons, Boris (born 1908) and Maks Wesset (1914), who were Jewish, were also shot. Only the eldest son, Jeremiah (1904), escaped the Holocaust and the fate of his brothers, “thanks” to being mobilised by the previous regime into the Red Army. 

Summer children’s sanatorium operating at Pärnu II Sanatorium in 1962, photo by Hermann Rannau, Pärnu Museum collection PäMu F 1825:101 

Sanatorium building 

Wesset’s house on Supeluse Street was also nationalised by the Soviet authorities. During the German occupation, both the field command and the civil authorities were housed in these premises. After the war, they were given to Pärnu Sanatorium No. 2 as an accommodation building. In 1948, the Pärnu Central Labour and Savings Bank department was also located on the first floor. A post office serving holidaymakers and sanatoriums was opened next to it. 

In 1993, the house was returned to Elias Wesset’s son, Jeremiah, and his nephews. The dilapidated building had been standing empty for years behind a fence, waiting for restoration and new owners with new ideas, until a 24-room hotel with an à la carte restaurant opened on 8 March 2007. The hotel was named “Villa Wesset” after the owner of the former sweets factory.