The courtyard of the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery likely emerged next to the yard of the boyar Shein in the 16th century. According to the chronicle, in 1566 a church of the Annunciation was built on the courtyard.

The Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery was considered one of the richest and most revered monasteries in Russia. It was founded in 1479 by Ivan Sanin, a disciple of Pafnuty Borovsky, known in monastic life as Joseph of Volokolamsk. By the end of the 17th century, the monastery owned 159 settlements with 11,000 peasants. At that time, the courtyard in Moscow had dilapidated wooden cells, a hayloft, an icehouse, a granary, and a stable. In the late 18th century, the monastery leased the courtyard to merchants Andreas Rossi and Ivan Gauthier to build a new building. In the early 19th century, the three-story building of the courtyard included shops and offices for bill protests on the first floor, while the upper floors had rooms for rent and an inn.

From 1882 to 1884, architect A.S. Kaminsky constructed a new building for the monastery, incorporating Gothic and Old Russian elements in the design. The architect created an ensemble with the already existing building opposite, the New Trinity Courtyard, which flanked the square with the monumental structures of the two largest monasteries in Russia. The premises were once again rented out. The first floor housed numerous shops: a textile shop, merchants Bitepazh and Lyusht, a manufacturing firm "Brothers P. and S. Tretyakov and V. Konshin," a shoemaker's shop of merchant Korolev, a tea shop of merchant Botkin, and a Dutch shop of Eikhtmeyer. There was also the famous brokerage office of Svechin and Rakhmanov.

Since 1918, the building has housed the financial department. Initially, it was the People's Commissariat of Finance, then the Ministry of Finance of the USSR, and after the 2012 reconstruction, the Treasury of the Russian Federation.