THE STORY OF RUNO

1991 – HISTORIC BUILDINGS

Welcome to RUNO Hotel Porvoo. Allow me to introduce myself — I am Erkka Hirvonen, founder and general manager of RUNO Hotel Porvoo. RUNO is the realisation of over 15 years of dreaming of one day developing my own hotel project. My story began when I was around seven years old, in 1991, when my father inherited half of a small manor house from my Karelian grandfather. When Finland lost Karelia to Russia after the Second World War, displaced Karelians were allocated properties in Finland as compensation, and so my great-grandfather's family and ten other Karelian families came to share Rutumi Manor and its grounds. Years after my grandfather's death, my parents decided to acquire the other half of the manor when its owner at the time passed away. What followed was more than five years of restoration work, during which my three brothers and I spent our summers and winters restoring the manor — and so, from an early age, I became immersed in the restoration of historic buildings.

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2001 – THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY AND EXPERIENTIAL HOSPITALITY

When the restoration of the manor was complete, it was decided to turn it into a venue for private events and celebrations. This allowed us to show our guests not only what we had achieved, but also to offer them a piece of the manor's beautiful history. In the early days, the manor was run by our family — the four sons — together with the family of our first head chef, who had five daughters.

The manor's history held many fascinating stories: the aunt of Ville Vallgren, Finland's most celebrated sculptor, Laura Vallgren, served as the lady of the manor during its golden era in the mid-19th century. Ville Vallgren wrote about life at the manor in his ABC book, and we used this as a script for both our restoration work and the design of our service concept. My parents wanted to create an experience in which guests would genuinely feel as though they had stepped into the manor during its golden age in the mid-1800s. To this end, they hired two actors to portray the lady of the manor, Laura Vallgren, and the master of the manor, Karl-Johan Gylling, who welcomed our groups and transported our guests into the world of the manor's golden era. All of us — the brothers and the daughters — also had our own roles in the drama: we spoke in an old-fashioned manner, and through this I too came to understand the importance of immersion and experiential storytelling in customer service.

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‍2005 – STUDIES

The private events and celebrations at our manor ignited in me a passion for the hotel and restaurant industry, which led me to work in restaurants, bars, and event services, and eventually to study hospitality management. After the first years of study, hotels caught my attention for their more mysterious profile. Hotels were far more versatile and complex than restaurants and bars, and therefore more interesting to me. Hotels offered much more time and opportunity to create memorable experiences. Being a deeply empathetic person, this meant I had more opportunities to create positive emotions for guests — which is what draws me to the industry. At the same time, my mother kept pointing out that it was difficult to attract conference groups to our manor, as there was no accommodation available.

Inspired by this, I wanted to explore in my thesis the development of a small hotel in the manor's old barn, and in doing so learn everything that goes into operating and developing a hotel. As I completed my thesis and hotel development plan, I came to understand just how complex, challenging, and costly it is to develop a hotel project — and that we had no realistic means of building one at the manor. But, as someone who loves a challenge, and inspired by the fascinatingly complex world of hotels, a dream was born: that one day I might take everything I had learned about hotel development and put it into practice in a project of my own. In pursuit of that dream, I set out into the world to develop my skills.

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2007 – DUBAI

In my third year of studies, before my thesis, I had long been searching for an opportunity to work in a hotel, but it proved extremely difficult. The Finnish hotel industry was rather uninspiring over 15 years ago — and remains somewhat so today. I eventually decided to apply for an exchange programme in Dubai, as it kept coming up when I researched interesting hotel markets. There was something dreamlike about it: a "everything is possible" attitude — exactly the mindset I needed to pursue my dream. I ended up going to Dubai to study hospitality at a top institution and to complete my work placement at the flagship hotel of the same company, Jumeirah. After a year in Dubai and the completion of my thesis, I realised that developing my own hotel project was truly my dream, and so I returned to Dubai to learn the industry from the many different angles that my thesis had taught me I needed to master.

While working in Dubai across hotel operations, commercial, and development roles at various hotel chains, I began to hunger for deeper knowledge of hotel development and started an MBA focused on tourism and hotel development. Alongside my work, I also pursued a personal interest in researching potential real estate and hotel markets around the world — including Greece during their property crisis in 2015 — in the hope of finding a location for my own hotel project. I never once considered Finland as a potential market.

As a young man, I thought: who would want to travel to Finland — and certainly not to Porvoo, my home town. During this time I had also been developing my own restaurant concept centred around social and cross-cultural dining, but at the first angel investor meeting, the idea and concept were shot down immediately and I gave up — although years later I would watch the social dining concept emerge and take off. From this I learned that the next time I pitch something to investors, I would prepare far more thoroughly and not give up so easily.

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2016 – THE FIRST TASTE OF RUNO

While living in Dubai, my brother and business partner Arttu Hirvonen would visit me with his family every year, and we would always talk about business opportunities — Dubai was a stage for dreams and possibilities, and naturally inspired these conversations. In 2016, Arttu mentioned for the first time that the City of Porvoo was selling some of its properties, and that Porvoon Valtimontalo (the former name of the RUNO Hotel Porvoo property) was coming up for sale. Living in Porvoo, Arttu noted that it was difficult to accommodate guests in the city, as there was no proper hotel. I myself was sceptical that Finland and Porvoo could be such a promising location for a hotel, but I said I could run the numbers and put together a short feasibility study on Valtimontalo, using the calculation models I had developed in my thesis and the knowledge I had gained in Dubai. Initially doubtful, I expected the figures not to support the idea — but the opposite turned out to be true: almost every indicator in the feasibility study showed green or amber, which opened my eyes to the possibility and allowed me to let my emotions into the equation as well. After that, we didn't hang around.

Arttu and I began discussions with the City of Porvoo leadership about purchasing the property and developing a hotel at Valtimontalo. We even tried, just the two of us, to rush through the purchase before it went to public sale — even though we had no investors on board at that stage. We recognised the strong potential of the property and the project, and for that reason we wanted to move quickly and take the risk.

In the end, however, the property went to a public tender process, which took time — and in the meantime we had the opportunity to build an investment team around us. The first to join at the development stage was Joakim Seeberg from Porvoo. We then searched for and found the remaining four investors: Roni Collin, Toni Oksanen, and Simo Seistola from Porvoo, and Matti-Pekka Sävelkoski from Espoo. All seven of us together formed the ownership team and board, which has remained together to this day.

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2017 – THE NAME RUNO

The name RUNO came to me one night in Dubai, when the project had progressed far enough to need a name. Researching the history of the property, I learned that when it was built in 1912 — a year after the yellow neighbouring building — the inspiration and driving force behind Valtimontalo had been Fennomania. Fennomania was a movement in the early 20th century, through which Finnish-speaking culture sought to distinguish and separate itself from the influence of Sweden and Russia. Its connection to Valtimontalo lay in the fact that the large yellow stone building next door had been built by the Swedish-speaking community and a Swedish-speaking bank. In the spirit of Fennomania, the Finnish-speaking community and a Finnish-speaking bank wanted to build something next door that was grander and more representative of Finnish culture. To that end, details from the Kalevala — Finland's national epic and poem — were integrated into the building's façade, including the faces of Väinämöinen, the Kalevala's main character, carved into the building's attics.

The second source of inspiration for the name RUNO was Finland's national poet Johan Ludwig Runeberg, the writer and inspiration behind the lyrics of Finland's national anthem, who moved to Porvoo in 1837 and spent most of his life there. Upon moving to Porvoo, Runeberg initially lived at the Astenius Inn, located on the corner of our hotel's plot. The innkeeper, Mrs. Astenius, was the pioneer of Porvoo's hotel industry, later opening Hotel de Russia and Hotel de Paris in the city. As a side note, Mrs. Astenius's son Lars trained as a baker in St. Petersburg, and while Runeberg was staying at the inn, Lars prepared a delicious pastry for him. Runeberg introduced it to his wife, Fredrika Runeberg, who then developed it into what is now known as the Runeberg Torte — Finland's national pastry.

These two themes — the Finnish language and poetry — inspired in me the name RUNO, a strong Finnish name representing Finnish culture and language, which simply means "poem."

2019 – DESIGN

We won the public tender for the Valtimontalo property and took ownership in June 2019. By that point, I had already run a competitive process to select a design team for the project, so that I could hit the ground running with the hotel design the moment the property was in our hands. Eve Sarapää was selected as lead architect, Joanna Laajisto as interior architect, and Jani Heikari as project consultant. There were several other designers involved as well, but these three formed the core design team.

I had been refining RUNO's concept in my mind for over ten years, so I was looking for designers — and in particular an interior architect — who understood and appreciated my vision and could develop and elevate it further. Joanna Laajisto ultimately emerged as that person, and looking back, it was exactly the right choice. The collaboration with Joanna and the entire core design team was highly fruitful and effective.

RUNO's vision was clear to me as early as 2017, when we first presented the project to investors — and even today I still show the 2017 RUNO concept presentation during staff inductions. I had already drawn up a floor plan for the hotel in 2017, and it barely changed from there. The property was ideal for a hotel and left little room for any other approach. My sense of the space was also sharpened by living in the completely empty, ghost-like building on a camp bed — in what is now room 221 — for nearly six months before demolition began, walking the empty rooms and corridors, visualising spatial solutions and taking measurements for the plans.

I also developed a 38-step guest experience journey for the early stages — a path I want every guest to travel and feel, from the very first time they hear about us, all the way to becoming a regular. That guest experience journey is still only 70% realised, and there are many experience visions yet to be brought to life, as some are highly ambitious and challenging to execute. Naturally, elements of the journey have also evolved or been set aside over the years, as we have learned that some need to be approached differently, or not at all. With these visions, ideas, and documents in hand, we were able to prepare extensively during the design preparation phase, and were truly ready when we finally received the keys to the property.

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2020–2021 – CONSTRUCTION

We began demolition of the property at the turn of 2020 — as the design required, since only through demolition could we uncover information about the building that was not available in the old drawings. Originally built in 1912 and known as Valtimontalo, the property had served as both a bank and a residential building. What is now our restaurant, bar, and kitchen belonged to the bank. The reception area housed a flower shop, and the area now occupied by our meeting rooms was home to Porvoo's first cinema. The meeting room now called Parturi hosted a gentlemen's salon from the very first day the building opened right up until we purchased the property — and I still visit the last salon owner at his barbershop to this day. The upper floors, now our hotel rooms, served as some of Porvoo's most prestigious apartments; the bank's director, for example, lived in the space now occupied by hotel rooms 307–311.

We finally broke ground in June 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic created both headwinds and tailwinds for the contractor tendering process. In the end, four of the five main contractors were local. We put large stickers on the windows reading "Opening May 2021" followed by the names of all the contractors — and so began an 11-month race to get the hotel finished.

It felt as though those window stickers had accidentally created a sense among the contractors that "everyone can see we are building this city's new landmark, and it has to be ready in 11 months." Rather than feeling daunted, they were proud and ambitious — and we crossed the finish line on time. The quality of the contractors' craftsmanship is something you as our guests can see for yourselves, and it speaks for itself.

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2021 – RUNO HOTEL PORVOO

Through this letter, you have no doubt begun to understand the background behind RUNO's creation, and how it perhaps reflects in RUNO's surroundings. Let me now tell you more specifically what RUNO means to me, what I wanted RUNO to represent, and where the rest of the concept's inspiration comes from. RUNO's vision is to be a handcrafted luxury hotel that is homely and touching, and that challenges the conservative conventions of the industry. In my concept presentation, I had three benchmark hotel concepts, each of which inspired me in their own important way.

The first is Ett Hem in Stockholm — this incredibly soulful hotel represents the homeliness and un-hotel-like quality that I want RUNO to embody as well. In our service approach and environment, I want to create the feeling of visiting a friend or family. The second is Soho House, which also represents a unique hotel concept built around membership, but what inspires me about Soho House is their ability to reflect local culture and craftsmanship richly and abundantly. I want RUNO to proudly and boldly represent Finnish and Nordic craftsmanship — in construction, restoration, carpentry, furnishings, decoration, art, food, drink, and so on. My third source of inspiration, and international role model, was Ian Schrager and his Edition hotel concept. Ian Schrager is the bold pioneer of the boutique hotel world and the founder of the world-famous Studio 54. After Studio 54 closed, he channelled his characteristically bold, industry-challenging spirit into developing small, experience-driven hotels in New York — from which the boutique hotel concept was born. In the 2000s, he developed the Edition hotel concept, which he later sold to the Marriott hotel group to operate. The harmony, minimalism, and lighting of the Edition concept were the elements with which I wanted to create a canvas for RUNO — one onto which I could integrate the cultural richness of Soho House and the homeliness of Ett Hem. More broadly, Ian Schrager inspires me in his courage to make the hotel industry better and more experiential.

For the final finishing touch to the concept, I wanted to ensure sensoriality — that every detail and every sense had been carefully considered and tested — in order to create a calming and relaxing environment. To help achieve this, I developed the 4S method (Sight, Sound, Smell, Sensation), which meant that every purchase that would affect or touch the guest had to satisfy all four of the senses mentioned above. For example, a chair had to look good, sound good when used, smell good, and feel good. The power of this method is demonstrated by the countless reviews in which our guests mention that they cannot quite explain why they feel good — they just do. This feeling comes from the subconscious: when all the senses are satisfied, or conversely, when no sense is disturbed. It is this elusive state that we strive for in everything we do, so that our guests can simply and purely feel at ease.

I hope you feel the same, and that through this letter you have been able to step a little deeper into the world of RUNO.

Welcome, and enjoy.

Erkka Hirvonen RUNO Founder

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