The Babolovsky Palace owes its existence to Catherine II, who in the spring of 1779 ordered the construction of a "curious wooden building" for her favorite, Prince Grigory Potemkin, on the shore of an artificial pond formed by damming the Kuzminka River. It was also ordered to lay out an English garden, surrounded by a rampart and a ditch to drain the area. Opposite the palace, on the other side of the river, it was planned to build a residential wing and stables with a carriage house for the palace servants. The one-story wooden house, which today would be called a SPA complex, consisted of 8 rooms: a Large Hall with 12 lower and 11 upper windows, four rooms with nine windows, a bath room with 4 windows, a gallery with five windows, and a bathhouse with a boiler for heating water. Apparently, the idea of this entertainment complex, remote from the Grand Palace, so pleased the Empress that just a year and a half later—in November 1782—she decided to build a new stone house on the site of the old one, with the same set of rooms but featuring a new marble bath.

In 1780, Catherine ordered the construction of a small wooden house with service rooms near the aqueduct for 3,984 rubles. But the building did not last long: the beauty of the location and the seclusion of the structure convinced Catherine II in 1782 to give the "order" to demolish the wooden house. At the same time, the Empress ordered the erection of a stone palace with 7 rooms, including a marble bath placed in a round room. The stone building was constructed instead of the wooden five-room house located at the edge of the forest near the village of Babolovo. Construction began on November 2, 1782, and the project was designed by architect Ilya Vasilyevich Neyolov. This date marks the beginning of the palace's history.

The asymmetrical structure (which was a new concept in architecture at the time) was built on a hill on the shore of the Silver Pond. At the junction of two main wings converging at an angle, an octagonal turret with a tented roof was erected. The facades were designed in the neo-Gothic style, with parapets shaped like battlements. Despite its name, this was not a palace in the full sense of the word. Due to its modest size and limited room area, the owners visited only occasionally and never lived there permanently. It was also ordered to lay out an English garden, surrounded by a rampart and a ditch to drain the area.

Opposite the palace, on the other side of the river, it was planned to build a residential wing and stables with a carriage house for the palace servants. Another reason, besides the dilapidation of the wooden house, for the further improvement and development of the stone building near Babolovo should be noted.

The Russian State Historical Archive holds a file titled "On the construction in the village of Babolovo of a stone house with one marble bath instead of the existing wooden one," started on November 2, 1782.

The contract for the construction of the "Stone House near the village of Babolovo" was signed in January 1783 with the "master of stonework" Iosif Minchaki. He built the building according to the design of Ilya Vasilyevich Neyolov and apparently completed the construction the same year. Since by the summer of the following year, the "master of pictorial art" Fyodor Danilov was already painting the palace's interior rooms based on Neyolov's drawings.

Between 1783 and 1785, the stone palace was erected according to architect Neyolov's project. Around it, an underground stone pipe was built to prevent dampness, and it was connected to the Taitsky aqueduct.

In the compositional solution of the small palace, red brick facades in the spirit of English Gothic and an asymmetrical layout predominated. All rooms had access to the garden. The English garden occupied a small trapezoidal plot, which did not reach the Babolovo clearing and was limited to the north by the picturesque shoreline of the Babolovsky pond. An earthen rampart with a ditch and the straight line of the Baur Canal separated the garden from the surrounding Babolovsky state forest, which at that time occupied the area from the Gatchina road to the Kuzminka River. A walking path along the canal connected the palace with the Catherine Park.

In front of the southern facade of the palace, the Silver Pond was dug, and a Grotto was built on the shore of the Babolovsky pond. The perimeter of the garden was gently curved by a winding road, and in the center, a network of landscape paths led to the palace's window-doors.

According to Vilchkovsky, in 1785 Catherine II granted the Babolovsky Palace, which was originally not intended for residence, to Prince Grigory Potemkin, thus moving him to the outskirts of the palace residence. However, the building remained under the jurisdiction of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace Administration and was never listed as the prince's property. Work to strengthen the foundations and walls in accordance with the installation of a new dome, as well as to rebuild the walls of the adjoining pavilion rooms, continued until 1829.

The appearance of the unplastered facades was not changed during the reconstruction, but the facades of the palace's service rooms were plastered and painted in a red-brown color "like brick" with white paint outlining the joints.

After 1918, the Babolovsky Park was under the management of the Directorate of Palaces, Museums, and Parks of the city of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo), and the palace was handed over to the military for the school of the 100th Aviation Assault Brigade of the Leningrad Military District.

During the Great Patriotic War, this monument of national landscape art suffered great damage. The palace, burned as a result of bombing, was left with only brick walls and a miraculously unharmed granite bath, while many trees in the park were lost.

Sources:

https://www.citywalls.ru/house26930.html

https://peterburg.center/maps/babolovskiy-dvorec-v-carskom-sele-cennye-ruiny-s-mnogovekovoy-istoriey.html