From the top: Sagadi Manor, Palmse's greenhouse, the brewery now a guest house, and the Baron's office with his Major General's uniform and the handmade map of 1864.
(Excerpted from my book Our Summer In Estonia, Amazon.com)
The first mention of the location Palmse dates to 1287 when it was mentioned in connection to properties belonging to Tallinn's St. Michael's Nunnery. The Cistercian monks traded their rights to the land to a Swedish family in 1510, and through marriage it devolved to the von der Phalen family in 1676. Palmse would remain in the Phalen family for 250 years, until the new Estonian Republic dissolved the Manor House system immediately following WWI, in 1919.
Palmse (meaning palms) is an excellent example of one of the largest most successful, highly regarded Estonian manor house operations. It was very, very large! A handmade map on display in the Baron's office, dated 1864, shows that their landholdings at 26,736 acres (10820 hectares.) That's forty square miles! The Phalens had over 1,000 peasants working the land, and were reputed to have excellent relations with them, not incurring any rebellion during their long 250 years tenure, although the relationship was clearly master and servant.
The Phalen family history serves as an excellent example of the Baltic German families service to the King or Tsar, their industriousness, and why they were allowed to remain in Estonia by foreign rulers. Carl Magnus von der. Phalen served the Tsar as a cavalry Major General and saw service during the Napoleonic war. His son Alexander built the first railway building in Tallinn and was a founding director of the Baltic Railway Company operating between Tallinn and St. Petersburg. His son Alexis, studied paleontology at the University of Tartu. The family was noted for its brewery, and several generations of Phalen botanists experimented in the family orchards and greenhouses.
The manor house has undergone a complete renovation although none of the furnishings are original. The Phalens removed all their belongings when the left for Germany in 1923. At that time the land was divided among ten families and the manor house was taken over by the Defense League, otherwise the Estonian armed forces.
Not far from Palmse is their neighbors the von Fock's. They occupied Sagadi manor house (1793) built in the French country style, operating 11,735 acres with about 750 peasants. I mention this second example because it so impressed me that there were over a thousand such estates, some larger some smaller, mostly continuing their German lineage. Most of these estates have long been divided and the houses left to deteriorate. There are a few cases where the former family has won a claim with the new government, and their property confiscated in 1919 returned.
