 At the time of its construction, Meilahti lay outside the boundaries of Helsinki.Initially, Kesäranta was a two-storey wooden villa, but in 1887, after it was acquired by Carl Robert Ignatius, a cashier at the Bank of Finland, the building was altered to the designs of Elia Heikel, who added a 20-metre tower and a bayside veranda to the building.In 1904, Kesäranta was purchased by the State to serve as the summer residence of the Governor-General of Finland.