At the end of the 17th century, there was the palace of Prince-Emperor Fyodor Romodanovsky, who was buried nearby at the Georgievsky Monastery cemetery. Romodanovsky, a descendant of Rurik and uncle of Peter the Great, was a trusted person of the emperor and the de facto ruler of Moscow, holding the title of generalissimo. It is known that his main residence was on Mokhovaya Street, near the Borovitsky Gates, not far from the estates of Zotov and Menshikov, and this palace was likely a secondary property. Later, the estate passed to Prince S. N. Trubetskoy, and after the 1812 war, to merchant Hippolyte Chevalier and then to Marceline Chevalier.

The buildings on the site suffered greatly from a fire, so in the 1830s, a new building for a luxurious hotel and restaurant was constructed based on the main house of the estate. In January 1860, the French poet Théophile Gautier described his impressions of staying there: “I was given rooms furnished with luxurious furniture, with mirrors and wallpaper in large patterns, like in the grand Parisian hotels. Not a trace of local color, but all the delights of modern comfort... The only typically Russian item was a sofa upholstered in green leather, on which it was so sweet to sleep curled up under a fur coat.”

Leo Tolstoy in “The Decembrists” calls the Chevalier hotel the best in Moscow. He devotes so much attention to it in the novel that he might be suspected of product placement today.

“...Mr. Chevalier did not share such a view of people and was not interested in the information provided by Peter Ivanovich; but the good French language spoken by Peter Ivanovich and the gentlemanly manners made him raise his opinion of the newcomers. How may I serve you? he asked.

This question did not trouble Peter Ivanovich. He expressed a desire for rooms, tea, a samovar, dinner, lunch, food for the servants, in a word, the things for which hotels exist, and when Mr. Chevalier, surprised by the innocence of the old man, who thought he was in the Turkmen steppe or that all this would be given to him for free, announced that all this could be had, Peter Ivanovich was delighted.”

It is worth noting that Leo Tolstoy himself stayed at this hotel, as did Nekrasov, Pushchin, Fet, and Grigorovich. The Chevalier restaurant was also popular and consisted of a hall, two small rooms, and a winter garden. Here one could order a set menu “a ready dinner, consisting of a bowl of broth and three dishes.”

A. N. Ostrovsky also mentions the restaurant in his play “Characters Did Not Match.” The hero complains: “Well, now I owe everyone: the cab driver, the tailor, and Chevalier. Everyone goes to Chevalier, and the legal scholars... I can’t really eat onion pies, and there I still need to take an exam at some district school.”

A regular visitor to the restaurant was Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev, who dined here even the day before his death.

The hotel did not last long but left a vivid mark. Then a tenement house “New Time” was established here. In 1879, a temporary structure for the studio of the photographer of the Imperial Theaters M. N. Kanarsky appeared on the roof. This temporary structure is still visible today from the side of house No. 2. In the 1950s, “Moskniga” was located on the first floor of the building, and on the second, there were two communal apartments. Later, workshops of the Moscow Union of Artists settled here, which were evicted in 1999. Since then, the building has been vacant.

In 1993, an investment contract was signed for comprehensive reconstruction and development of the blocks. According to the plan, only the front facade of the hotel was to remain, which was unacceptable. At the end of 2009, the investor requested to expedite the fate of the object, and at that time, a public movement action “Stop the Epidemic of Vandalism” took place. The house was left alone, and at the end of 2012, it was recommended for inclusion in the register of cultural heritage objects. In July 2013, the hotel “Chevalier” became a cultural heritage site.