A small one-story wooden house with a mezzanine was built after the fire in Moscow in 1812 and has survived because Russian writer and thinker Alexander Herzen lived there from 1843 to 1847. In this "small" house, he lived with his family and worked on his works: the stories "The Magpie Thief," "Doctor Krupov," the novel "Who is to Blame?" and the cycle of philosophical essays "Letters on the Study of Nature." Previously, Herzen lived nearby with his parents in a "large" house at 25/9, which was demolished in 1998, and a concrete replica now stands in its place.

Later, the house changed owners but retained its appearance. In the 1920s, it was described in the novel-pamphlet by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov "The Twelve Chairs" as "The Dormitory of Monk Berthold Schwartz":

"…they stopped at Sivtsev Vrazhka. What kind of house is this? asked Ippolit Matveyevich. Ostap looked at the pink house with the mezzanine and replied: The dormitory of chemistry students named after monk Berthold Schwartz. …The companions climbed the spiral staircase to the mezzanine. The large room of the mezzanine was divided by plywood partitions into long slices, each two arshins wide. The rooms resembled pencil cases, with the only difference being that, besides pencils and pens, there were people and Primuses here."

In 1934, a literary exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Herzen was organized in the house. It includes interiors recreating the atmosphere of the writer's study and living room, unique portraits of Herzen, his family and close ones, personal belongings, and rare books with autographs, manuscripts, and views of places associated with Herzen in Russia and abroad.