The old estate, which gave its name to the street, has a rich history. In the second half of the 17th century, the chambers of the Volkonsky princes were built deep within the courtyard. In the 18th century, an alley appeared behind them, at a higher level than the street, causing the first floor of the chamber's facade to be underground. The basement was built of white stone, while the main floor was made of red brick.

In the mid-18th century, the chambers housed the tavern "Volhonka," but in 1788 the building became residential again. Another house was built along the line of Volkhnka, connected to the chambers by an end section, featuring a classical facade and a pediment above three windows with semicircular arches. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the estate belonged to the Moscow vice-governor Yefim Yefimovich Rinkevich. In 1802, his son Alexander, a Decembrist and member of the Northern Society, was born here. During the fire of 1812, the property was severely damaged, but Rinkevich received state assistance in the form of bricks for the restoration of the estate.

In the mid-19th century, the estate passed to first guild merchant Khristofor Dmitrievich Spiridonov. In the early 1890s, the house was rented by the Society of Art and Literature, founded in Moscow in 1888 by K.S. Stanislavsky and his colleagues.

In the early 20th century, the owner of the house became Olga Alexeyevna Olenina, and in the 1910s, the estate was acquired by the owners of the neighboring house on Volkhnka, No. 10, "Trading House G. Volkov and Sons." Gavrila Volkov, the founder of the famous banking house, was a serf of the Golokhvastov landowners, but thanks to Prince N.B. Yusupov, he was granted freedom. According to legend, he walked to Moscow and, having become wealthy, bought two houses on Volkhnka. One of his sons, Pyotr Gavrilovich Volkov, worked as a commissioner and appraiser at the Moscow Armory Chamber. The house housed a stationery store, a bookstore, and a women's school.

From 1927 to 1932, the building housed the presidium of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR), which included such outstanding artists as I. Brodsky and A. Arkhipov.

In 1934, the house was planned to be demolished for the construction of the first metro line tunnel, but due to the complexity of quickly relocating the residents, it was preserved. Now the foundation of the house serves as the ceiling of the metro tunnel.

In 2013-14, the building was reconstructed, and the second phase of the Museum of Personal Collections, part of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin, opened there.