In 1859, V.I. Dal, a renowned writer and actual state councilor, settled with his family in Moscow, in a house by the Presnensky ponds after retiring. This house, now located at 4/6 Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street, is known as the "Dal House." It was frequently visited by prominent figures of Russian culture such as A.F. Pisemsky and S.T. Aksakov with their sons. The writer P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky lived here for several years and wrote the novel "In the Forests." It was in this house that V.I. Dal prepared for publication his complete works in eight volumes (1861), the collection "Proverbs of the Russian People" (1862), and completed work on the "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" (1863, 1866).

After V.I. Dal's death, his son Lev Vladimirovich Dal, an academician of architecture, lived in the house and reconstructed the building, adding elements of wooden architecture while preserving classical features.

From 1902 to 1917, the house was inhabited by academician A.M. Butlerov, the founder of the Russian school of organic chemistry, and from 1920 to 1924, by Professor M.P. Shtokmar, Doctor of Philological Sciences.

The house is associated with many significant events. It miraculously survived the fire of Moscow in 1812. At the end of 1871, P.M. Tretyakov visited the house and commissioned a portrait of Dal from the artist V.G. Perov, which was completed in early 1872 and is now housed in the Tretyakov Gallery.

In the spring of 1942, a high-explosive bomb fell near the house but did not explode.

Due to the development of the area, the "Dal House" ended up in the courtyard of an administrative building. By the 1960s, the house had fallen into disrepair and was threatened with demolition. The Moscow branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments made efforts to preserve it as a unique monument of domestic culture.

In 1986, a Museum Room was opened in one of the rooms of the house, and in 1992, a memorial plaque was installed on the facade, attesting to V.I. Dal's significant contribution to the history of Russian culture.