In the early 19th century, the house on Bolshaya Dmitrovka was owned by the family of Moscow merchant Ivan Afanasyevich Zhivago. This family owned the house until the 1917 revolution.

The Zhivago surname was well-known among the merchant families of Moscow and Ryazan. In 1820, brothers Sergey and Ivan Zhivago moved to Moscow.

Sergey Afanasyevich Zhivago became the most famous representative of the family in Moscow. He founded the Ryazan Commercial Bank and owned an officers' goods store on Uspensky Lane. Sergey was awarded a gold medal for the reconstruction of the Church of the Assumption on Uspensky Vrazhka. His brother Ivan Afanasyevich owned a house at the corner of Bolshaya Dmitrovka and Dmitrovsky Lane, known since the 1830s. The vaulted cellars of this building have survived to this day, and visitors to the cafe 'PiroGI', which opened here in the 1990s, could see them.

In 1884, an income house was built for the Zhivago merchants according to the design of architect S.S. Eibushitz, framing the corner of the street and lane. This three-story building in the neoclassical style, with a semicircular corner and a canopy adorned with the owners' monogram, harmoniously fit into the row of income houses on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. The passage arch led to the courtyard from Dmitrovsky Lane. The first floor housed shops, while the two upper floors were rented out.

From 1901 until the October Revolution, Alexander Vasilyevich Zhivago, the grandson of Ivan Afanasyevich, lived in the house. He was a doctor at Golitsyn Hospital and a member of the Russian Photographic Society. Alexander collected a unique collection of ancient Egyptian rarities, which was exhibited in his home and is now stored in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts along with his library, which contains over 6,000 volumes. After the revolution, he worked as a scientific secretary at the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, and from 1923, he became a lecturer and head of the classical East department. Zhivago, who spoke several languages and possessed encyclopedic knowledge, conducted museum tours that amazed professionals and orientalists. It is worth noting that he has no relation to Boris Pasternak's novel; the choice of surname in the novel is coincidental.

Currently, the building has been raised by a fourth floor and has lost the Zhivago merchants' monogram.