Maxim Geppener was born in Moscow in 1848 and received his education in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 1871, he returned to Moscow and became a pupil of the famous architect Alexander Kaminsky. Five years later, he was appointed architect of the Imperial Educational House. In 1877, Geppener began working in the Moscow City Administration and joined the architectural and technical department of the construction council, where he worked on major projects for the city government, such as the design of the Moscow tram, water supply, sewage systems, and the construction of educational institutions.

The architect built a small wooden house and a stone wing for himself in the area of 2nd Mariinsky Lane, which was renamed in 1922 in honor of the writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky. This ensemble of the city estate, including the mansion and the wing, was presumably erected in the mid-1890s for his family.

The Geppener house has not only memorial value. In the 1970s, when the lane underwent reconstruction, most historical buildings disappeared, but the Geppener estate was preserved. The two-story wooden building on a stone basement has retained its volumetric-spatial composition, original facades, and many decorative elements from the late 19th century, such as cornices, rosettes, and stucco. The stone wing has also been well preserved. In the 1920s, the mansion and wing were likely used for offices and commercial premises, and later adapted into communal apartments.

Since 1913, Maxim Geppener was a member of the technical council of the Moscow City Administration. After 1917, he worked in the consulting bureau of the construction department under the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies, from 1921 in the architectural section of the construction-technical committee and technical department, as well as deputy head of the sub-department of cultural and educational buildings. In 1922, he was appointed senior architect of the Moscow provincial architect's office. Maxim Geppener passed away in 1924.