The wing of the ancient estate, owned by the princes Nelydinsky-Meletsky, Volkonsky, and Trubetskoy, was likely built by Prince M. N. Volkonsky, who was a general and a participant in the Seven Years' War. His father, who held a high position, served as a court jester under Anna Ioannovna. In 1810, merchant F. Lang purchased the estate from Privy Councillor V. N. Zinoviev for 30,000 rubles and rented out the buildings on the premises. After the fire of 1812, several wings temporarily housed the Moscow provincial gymnasium while its buildings on Volkhonka were being repaired. Among its students was M. P. Pogodin. In 1818, poet K. N. Batyushkov lived with the gymnasium's director P. M. Druzhinin, and in 1824, composer A. A. Alyabyev settled here.

In 1826, the main house was occupied by an eye hospital, and in the 1820s, A. I. Rene-Semen rented the middle floor for his printing house at the Medical-Surgical Academy. His printing house was considered the best in Moscow and published about a thousand books, including works by Zhukovsky, Griboedov, Baratynsky, and almost all of Pushkin's writings published in Moscow. On the third floor of the house, the great Polish poet A. Mickiewicz lived in the autumn of 1827.

In the 1900s, the estate was acquired by V. I. Soldatenkov, the nephew of the famous Moscow merchant K. T. Soldatenkov. In 1902, the Moscow Imperial Philharmonic Society rented it for the Musical and Dramatic School. The dramatic classes of the school were led by well-known actors and educators: A. Yuzhin, O. Pravdin, and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. Among the graduates of 1898 were O. Knipper, Savitskaya, Meyerhold, and others. That same year, graduates and participants of the Society of Art and Literature created a troupe that became the foundation for the Moscow Art Theatre. In the music classes of the school, P. Shostakovich, R. Erlich, S. Kusevitsky, and K. Erdeli taught. The school graduated composer V. Kalinnikov and singer L. Sobinov.

In 1918, the school was renamed the Musical and Dramatic Institute, in 1919, the State Institute of Musical Drama, and on September 17, 1922, after merging with the State Higher Theatre Workshops under Meyerhold, it became the State Institute of Theatre Arts, GITIS. In the 1920s-30s, the director of GITIS, professor of the Moscow Conservatory, and conductor K. S. Saradjev lived in this wing. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and trained under A. Nikish. His son Konstantin was a virtuoso bell ringer and theorist of Russian bell ringing, possessing a unique musical ear, often ringing bells in Moscow's bell towers.