Festningsgata 15 is one of the largest old town-houses in Vardø. The building is on two storeys, with a loft and base measuring approx. 150 square metres. Before the restoration during the 1990s there was an apartment on each floor. Today there are two small apartments on the ground floor and one larger one on the upper floor. The loft is unfurnished and has been used as a drying loft, storage room, etc.

During the building restoration work in the 1990s, the remains were found of a small, timber-jointed cellar under the middle of the house. The cellar had been very painstakingly made, with flakes of birch bark between the timbers and surrounding shell-sand and earth. This type of use of birch bark is a characteristic feature of the building tradition in large areas of Eastern Finnmark, where there were widespread contacts with Russia through the Pomor trade, and thus the influence of the North-East European “birch bark culture”.

The house, which has survived both periods of neglect and bomb attack, is today in private ownership.