In 1912, Moscow merchant of the second guild and one of the largest property owners in the capital, Ivan Mikhailovich Korovin, commissioned the well-known Moscow architect Ivan Gavrilovich Kondratenko to build a large income house in the Baroque style at the corner of Starokonyushenny and Gagarinsky Lanes. The choice of architect was not accidental: ten years earlier, I.G. Kondratenko had built a mansion for I.M. Korovin nearby, on Malaya Vlasyevskaya Lane.

The new building impresses with its size and massiveness, like many apartment buildings constructed by I.G. Kondratenko in the 1910s. The two lower floors of the building are decorated with rustication. The entrances to the building are strikingly highlighted and designed as three-sided bay windows with mirrored glass, creating a clear geometric pattern. The central part of the facade is adorned with a gigantic rectangular attic featuring a flat semi-circular niche. Various balconies complement the facade from the sides of Gagarinsky and Starokonyushenny Lanes. Above the entrances, the year of construction is indicated in Roman numerals MCMXIV (1914).