The house on the corner of Bolshaya Morskaya Street with shovels and panels characteristic of early classicism was built in the late 1760s according to the project of A.V. Kvasov for Lieutenant General L. Ya. Ovtsyna. Later, the site belonged to the Vasilchikov family. The building was rebuilt at the beginning of the 19th century, and in 1832 a number of alterations were carried out by the architect P.P. Zhako. The upper part of the facades was supplemented by pilasters of the Corinthian order. Since 1773, there was a hotel and a pub “London” by G. Heidenreich, in which the Austrian Emperor Joseph II stayed in 1780. Later this place was replaced by the tavern "Paris". Since 1786, the house housed an English store, one of the most expensive in St. Petersburg, in which A.S. Pushkin had unlimited credit. The Bolshoi Theater purchased materials for ballet performances by M. I. Petipa. The English Shop trading company performed the malachite decoration of the Golden Living Room of the Winter Palace and the interior of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The shopkeepers were merchants K.V. Nichols, V.F. Plinke and R. Ya. Kokhun, who in the 1870s. became the owner of the site. In the middle of the XIX century. Lavinia Bravura lived in the house - the prototype of the heroine of B. Sh. Okudzhava’s novel “The Journey of Amateurs”. For the new owner of the merchant S. M. Tedeschi architect L. F. Sperer in 1880-1881. rebuilt the house and built the fifth floor. The facades received fine elegant detailing, characteristic of mature eclecticism, combined with preserved order elements - pilasters uniting the third and fourth floors. The reliefs were performed by the sculptor D.I. Jensen. Caduceus - the wands of Mercury - remind us that the building belonged to a merchant. In 1883, Count P.A. Zubov, the grand-nephew of one of the favorites of Catherine II, acquired the house. One of his heirs, who owned the house since the 1890s, was V.P. Zubov, creator and first director of the Institute of Art History (opened in 1912 in his own mansion on St. Isaac's Square, No. 5). In 1905, the architect G.I. Lutsedarsky rebuilt the two lower floors for the trading house M. and I. Mandl. " He reconstructed the premises, partially changed the design of doors and showcases, introduced design elements in the Art Nouveau style.
