Walch bought a plot of this house from the wife of the architect Trombar. At that time, the building looked different than it is now — the left side of the house was built in 1902.

Nearby on Teatralnaya Square was the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, where Griboedov planned to stage Creuset de Lesser's play “Family Secret”, which he translated from French. The writer was in the center of intellectual life in St. Petersburg in the early 19th century. Among his friends were poets, philosophers, theatergoers: P. I AM. Chaadaev, P. A. Katenin N. Muravyov, and A. I. Chepegov, who read the poems of young Pushkin, plays by Goethe and Schiller and sharply condemned serfdom and autocracy. The play was staged by Griboedov in 1815 at the Maly Theater and was a success.

By the way, in the same house F.M. Dostoevsky “settled” his old interest, Alyona Ivanovna, and many Petersburgers connect this house not with the world classic who really lived here, but with a fictional character, which, however, also had an impact on Russian culture.