A place Rachmaninoff enjoyed visiting: history and present-day of the mansion on Arbat

The name of Denezhny Lane ("Money Lane"), as one of the numerous Arbat lanes, is associated with the quarter where engravers and coiner makers of tsar' coins have lived since the 18th century. Over the hundreds of years, the lane was called Pokrovsky, Plescheev, Yermolovsky, until it finally became Denezhny again in 1994.

Only 600 meters long,  it is home to a number of old buildings – tenement houses, estates built by famous architects of the time. One of the most prominent buildings on the lane is No. 13, known today as the residential house of Bol-Gutheil.

Its history began in 1839 when a one-story wooden building of logs hewn from the inside on a stone foundation appeared here. It was a typical example of a small residential house built in the Empire style. Inside was an enfilade of three piano nobiles, with three wallpapered living rooms in the rear of the house. We discovered the remnants of this wallpaper in 2010 during field research.

 In 1887, a collegiate secretary Nikolai Bol purchased the site. On his order, Moscow architect Vladimir Gavrilov reconstructed the building significantly. The main entrance was set in the middle of the central façade, a mezzanine with a small balcony replaced entresols, and the façades were adorned with a plaster mouldings featuring classicist elements. The mansion's perimeter is crowned with profiled cornices, and the decorative elements – attics – above the main entrance and the arched window on the right side of the main façade complete its picturesque silhouette.

The internal layout has also changed during the rebuilding. One of the piano nobiles turned into a lobby, but the enfilade principle was retained. The interior decor was made in the style of classicism.

In 1892, Karl Friedrich Gutheil – an honorary citizen, a Moscow merchant of the second guild, and owner of the sheet music publishing house – became the owner of the mansion. He was a close friend of the composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who visited this house many times in the 1890s.

In the early 20th century, already under the new owner, it was converted into a revenue house with rooms rented out. The exterior also changed – two pilasters appear on the north end wall, and the cornice is complemented by a lower row of Art Nouveau foliate ornaments.

After the Revolution, the building was nationalized. It housed government offices for some time and later communal flats. In this regard, the basement was expanded, with another entrance from the yard made and additional partitions equipped inside.

By 1960, the mansion's façade had lost its balcony. Besides, the furnaces, both on the first floor and in the mezzanine, were dismantled. In 1980, the residents were resettled, and the house was adjusted for administrative purposes and placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was when alien plaster mouldings appeared on the façades, and some walls, partitions, and ceilings were covered with plasterboard.

Restoration and recreation

By the time restoration began in 2016, the Bol-Gutheil mansion was almost in an emergency condition. The main task facing the specialists was to preserve the spatial composition of the building, the decor elements, as well as to recreate the lost decorative elements.

Despite the poor building condition, valuable decorative elements have been preserved inside: cornices, central ceiling rosettes, plafond corner moldings, two double paneled doors, and oak parquet in the north rooms.

The restorers strengthened the supporting structures; returned the original color scheme and architectural design of the façades, including figured attics with cartouches and a crowning cornice. Plasterboard was removed from the walls and ceilings of the mansion.

The historic openings were uncovered, interior wooden doors with decorative panels, a wooden lobby, and the oak parquet of the great hall were reconstructed. The joinery with marble windowsills has also been recreated using historical materials, and the ceiling cornices and rosettes have been restored.

They also managed to recreate the historic stove in the hallway, stairs to the basement and the front staircase to the mezzanine with wooden steps on the metal load-bearing elements — stringers.

In 2017, the N. Bol-K. Gutheil mansion became a winner of the Moscow Restoration contest organized by the Moscow government in the categories Best Restoration/ Adaptation Project, Best Organization of Repair and Restoration Works, and High Quality of Repair and Restoration Works.