If you have been to the Yaroslavsky railway station, watched the premiere at the Moscow Art Theater, saw the famous Morozov mansion on Spiridonovka, visited the Gorky Museum, then you should know that you have already met works by the most famous Moscow architect Franz Osipovich Shekhtel. According to his projects, about 60 houses were built in Moscow. But there is one special one among them — he designed this mansion exclusively for his family.

In 1896, when the architect was 37, he found a place where two alleys met: a small section on which the church used to stand. It was not by chance that he was here — his customer lived nearby.

The architect demolished old wooden buildings and erected a brick mansion here on two floors. The building dramatically changed the overall appearance of Yermolaevsky Lane and still amazes those who pass here with its beauty. The almost Gothic castle stands out from the standard Moscow residential development. The architect himself gave the house the nickname “hut of inappropriate architecture”. The mansion was luxurious — the window was framed by climbing plants, and an interesting find was used above the main entrance: against a yellow background, he laid out three iris from a mosaic, one of which was blooming, the second was already in the prime of his life, and the third withered. The author reflected three periods of his life on the facade of his residential building. He lived here for 14 years. Whoever the famous architect did not accept: Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Korovin, Isaac Levitan, Mikhail Vrubel...

A little later, Shekhtel added two floors to the house, and six years later he left for Bolshaya Sadovaya. His fate was sad. The famous architect did not betray Russia during the revolutionary times, but stayed to create for it. But she repaid him with communal apartments, hunger and poverty. He continued to look for “the music of forms and the joy of colors” — what he aspired to in each of his masterpieces, but the beauty gradually slipped away.

Franz Schechtel died in 1926. “I built by Morozov, Ryabushinsky, Von Dervizam — and I remained poor. Stupid, but I'm clean,” he wrote to his friends.

His mansion building is now used for diplomatic receptions.