The plot on which the house was built belonged to the lady-in-waiting Princess Maria Sergeevna Buturlina, the wife of General of Infantry Sergey Petrovich Buturlin. Maria Sergeevna inherited the estate at the corner of Znamenka and Krestovozdvizhensky Lane from her father, Actual Privy Councillor and Senator Sergey Ivanovich Gagarin. From her father, Buturlina also inherited the estate of Yasenevo near Moscow and several houses in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The wedding of the Buturlins took place in 1840. In the memoirs of their descendant A.S. Buturlin, it is mentioned that Maria Sergeevna had no doubt about the existence of love at first sight. Her granddaughter Lyubov Dmitrievna recounted that when she and her cousins asked their grandmother this question, Maria Sergeevna replied: "I saw your grandfather and fell in love immediately for life."

Maria Sergeevna's brother, I.S. Gagarin, was a well-known Russian diplomat and a friend of P. Chaadaev. In 1842, he converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest, which at that time was considered a betrayal. Because of this, he was deprived of his inheritance, and Maria Sergeevna became her father's sole heiress, but she always provided generous assistance to her brother.

In 1899, Buturlina decided to build an income house on her plot with a facade facing Krestovozdvizhensky Lane. For this, she invited the famous Moscow architect S.K. Rodionov.

Rodionov constructed a five-story house in the classical style with a six-column portico and rusticated walls. Corinthian columns support the protruding cornice, and the windows of each floor have a unique design.

After Buturlina's death in 1902, the plot passed to her son Sergey Sergeevich, who was a military agent in England, the commander of the 2nd Grenadier Division in Moscow, and the deputy chairman of the Military Charitable Society of the White Cross.

In 1927, a cooperative house "Moscow Postman" was added to the wall of the income house, built on the neighboring plot.