In the Middle Ages Harku, with its small stone castle, was the residence of the Order’s deputy Komtur of Tallinn. In September 1710, during the Great Northern War, the capitulation between the Russian army and the Swedish forces and local nobility was signed in the manor house, ending the war in Estonia. The Budbergs remodeled the Baroque house in Early Classicist style in the 1770s, and in 1875 Robert von Ungern-Sternberg gave it its present Neo-Renaissance form.
From 1957 the house held the Institute of Experimental Biology; the park has a castle-like retaining wall and the ruins of a two-towered greenhouse.
Owners
Liivi ordu1372–1561
von Uexküll1679–1755
von Budberg1755–1836
von Ungern-Sternberg1836–1892
Hermann von Harpe1912–1919
Good to know
Nearby lie the ruins of what is thought to be a 14th-century Order castle.
In 1912 Hermann von Harpe sold part of the estate to 158 buyers to build the Peetri garden suburb.
In the 1920s and 1930s the manor held a reformatory and a prison.
Photos through time
2012 · The castle-like retaining wall and tower Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 3.0 EE2012 · Remains of the medieval castle Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 3.0 EE2022 · The park seen from the house, 2022 KerdoKristjan · CC BY-SA 4.02022 · The manor lake, 2022 KerdoKristjan · CC BY-SA 4.0
