The seaside town of Viimsi - with a small cargo harbour, a sailing marina and a beautiful coastline - is about 10 km northeast of Tallinn city centre. Its historical origins date back to the mid-13th century. On the site where the Estonian War Museum - General Laidoner Museum is now located (Mõisa tee 1), the first manor house was established in 1471. At that time, the area belonged to the nearby St Brigid's Monastery - one of the largest in Inflants. The entire eastern suburban district of Tallinn, Pirita (meaning Brigid), is named after its patron saint. Over the centuries, the Viimsi estate has passed into the possession of magnate families, first from Sweden, then Tsarist Russia, as well as Estonian nobility. The historicist-style main building, preserved today, was built in the 19th century (later there were minor modifications, including the extension of the side wings of the building). After nationalisation in 1919, the estate became the property of the Republic of Estonia. Four years later - in 1923 - by a parliamentary decision, the mansion was given to Lieutenant General Johan Laidoner for his merits in the country's war of independence. The manor became a summer residence, where the general lived together with his wife Maria née Kruszewski. Johan Laidoner (1884 - 1953) was an Estonian politician, diplomat and military officer. Commander-in-Chief of the Estonian Armed Forces, mediator and representative of Estonia in the League of Nations. Born near Felin, he came from an impoverished peasant family. For financial reasons, he chose a career in the Tsarist army, where he made a career of reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the disintegration of the Tsarist army in December 1917, he returned to Estonia, becoming a major contributor to the country's independence. The general had close ties with Poland. In 1904, while serving in Vilnius, he met a Polish noblewoman, Maria Kruszewska, whom he married a few years later. As Commander-in-Chief, he paid an official visit to Warsaw in 1928. He was honorary president of the Tallinn Estonia-Poland Society. In the summer of 1934, he hosted Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck, who was on an official visit to Estonia, at his estate in Viimsi. In September 1939, he decided to assist the escape from Tallinn harbour of the Polish ship ORP "Orzeł". It is noteworthy that the general knew Polish to a degree that allowed him to converse freely. In the summer of 1940, with the occupation of Estonia by the Soviets, the NKVD interned and then deported the Laidoner couple to Penza in the interior of Russia. They were later imprisoned in Moscow and then sentenced to exile deep into Russia in 1952. General Laidoner died in 1953 in a Soviet gulag in Vladimir-on-Klyazma and was buried in a mass grave. Maria née Krushevska-Laidoner survived exile and in 1956 obtained permission from the Soviet authorities to return to Estonia, on the condition that she never return to the family estate. Until the end of her days in her husband's country, she was surrounded by universal respect and reverence. She died in 1978 near Viljandi and was buried in the Tallinn cemetery.

The manor house in Viimsi was under the administration of the Soviet army after the Second World War. Until the early 1990s, it housed the radio surveillance unit of the USSR Navy's Baltic Fleet. After the Russians left, it was decided to use the building as a war museum and the collection of objects related to the Laidoner family also began. The National Estonian War Museum was opened in 2001. The current exhibition, within the framework of several permanent exhibitions, presents the history of the wars fought on Estonian territory and the service of the Estonian people in the armies of other countries. Special attention is given to the struggle for the restoration of Estonian independence and the role played by General Johan Laidoner in this process. On the first floor, in the central part of the manor house, an exhibition dedicated to the general's wife Maria née Kruszewska-Laidoner has been arranged in one of the rooms. On display there are, among other things, her two portraits, porcelain and crockery and furniture from the place where she lived towards the end of her life. The museum also has a publication on the cuisine of Maria Kruszewska, including a recipe for the wonderful cakes for which the general's wife was famous. In March 2011, the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, and the President of the Republic of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, unveiled a commemorative plaque in the manor house in Viimsi, dedicated to Marshal Józef Piłsudski and his contribution to Polish-Estonian cooperation. Two years later, in front of the Milusin Manor House in Sulejówek, on the grounds of the Józef Piłsudski Museum being built there, the same presidents unveiled a commemorative plaque dedicated to General Johan Laidoner. To the west of the Viimsi museum , on a hillside sloping gently down to the waters of the Baltic Sea, is the manor park. At its very edge is the artistically innovative monument to Johan and Maria Laidoner, unveiled in 2014. A competition entry by a team of two artists, Juhan Kangilaski and Maria Freimann, it was entitled 'Taaskohtumine' ('Meeting'). The four-metre-high sculpture made of black granite depicts the return of the Laidoner couple after a long absence and their meeting at the symbolic gate. On the slab below are carved the words in Estonian by Johan Laidoner: "I LOVE YOU AND WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND I ONLY FEEL GOOD WHEN WE ARE TOGETHER...".