The house of gardener Peter Buk is a monument of wooden architecture, built according to the project of architect Karl Rossi in 1818–1822. It is perhaps the most interesting wooden building of the Yelagin Island ensemble. The building is rectangular in plan: a stone basement floor and two upper wooden floors. The house is located to the north of the palace. The sizable house for a gardener should not surprise us. Despite the modest title of his position, Peter Buk managed a huge estate on the island. Over the years of his work, he created a greenhouse complex, a fruit orchard, a vegetable garden, plantations of summer plants for decorating the palace, and numerous flower beds. It is no coincidence that he was considered one of the best gardeners in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. He also managed the Tree Nursery, cultivating plants suitable for growth.

During the Soviet era, various services were housed in Buk’s house, and for a time there was a canteen on the second floor. The building has now been restored. In 2012, an interesting exhibition was held here, dedicated to the history of the house and the personality of the gardener. The creators of the exhibition tried to recreate samples of the flora of that time, supplementing it with fascinating historical stories. They presented a model of Buk’s house, several watercolors painted by the gardener himself, as well as reproductions of paintings that demonstrated the splendor of the flower beds of the early 19th century.

Sources:

https://elaginpark.org/central-park/dvortsovo-parkovyy-ansambl/dom-sadovnika-pitera-buka-/