Bolshaya Alekseevskaya Street, now known as A. Solzhenitsyn Street, began at the trading Taganskaya Square and was one of the widest streets of old Moscow. By the mid-19th century, it was fully built up with merchant mansions owned by well-known entrepreneurs Morozov, Alekseev, and Zubov.

In the first half of the 19th century, property No. 9 belonged to the Zaitsev merchants. In 1851, the estate with a stone house was acquired by Alexei Mikhailovich Polezhaev, a hereditary honorary citizen. He rebuilt the mansion, and in the tympanum of the pediment, his monogram "AP" with two cherubs is still preserved. Polezhaev's daughter, Klavdiya Alekseevna, married Vasily Pavlovich Zubov, a first-guild merchant and owner of a dyeing factory in Alexandrov. Zubov was an avid collector; his collection of rare musical instruments, including violins by Guarneri, Amati, and Stradivari, was one of the largest in Russia. He was also passionate about music and served for a time as the director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society.

By the end of the 19th century, the house on Bolshaya Alekseevskaya passed to their son, thermochemist Pavel Vasilyevich Zubov. Pavel Vasilyevich inherited the passion for collecting and amassed a collection of Muslim and Sasanian coins, as well as a large library on Oriental studies. He also loved music and played in the amateur orchestra of Moscow University, hosting musical evenings at his home, where renowned violinists I. V. Grzhimali, A. R. Malmberg, and F. S. Tal performed.

After the revolution, the collection of musical instruments was confiscated and became part of the state collection of unique instruments, now housed in the All-Russian Museum of Musical Culture named after M. I. Glinka. Pavel Vasilyevich bequeathed his numismatic collection to the Imperial Russian Historical Museum in 1900. In 1919, his house became a branch of the State Historical Museum, and four years later, the collection moved into its premises.

Pavel Vasilyevich Zubov died in 1921 and was buried in the cemetery of the Spaso-Andronikov Monastery, but the necropolis was destroyed in the 1930s. Today, a cross with the inscription "Pavel Vasilyevich Zubov, 1862-1921" stands at the site of his grave.

During the Soviet era, part of the house was occupied by the district "House of Teachers," later the "House of Enlightenment." Another part remained residential, where Pavel Vasilyevich's son, Vasily Pavlovich, a well-known Soviet philosopher, historian of science, and art critic, lived, compiling the family chronicle of the Zubovs and Polezhaevs.

In 2004, the mansion was acquired by the Sokolov family, who conducted a scientific restoration of the estate, completed in 2011. Here, the memory of the pre-revolutionary owners is honored, with regular classical music concerts, literary and musical evenings, excursions, and a gallery of contemporary sculpture.