The building was constructed in 1910–1912 under the aegis of Major-General Count , nephew of the 1812 war hero P. A. Tolstoy. After Tolstoy's death in 1913, ownership devolved to his widow Countess Olga Tolstoy (born a princess of the Vasilchikov family, daughter of Prince Alexander Illarionovich Vasilchikov, a second in the famous 1841 duel between Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Martynov).