In the 18th century, among wealthy Europeans, a fashion spread for building special pavilions called "Hermitage" or "place of seclusion." They were two-story buildings; on the lower floor were cooks and servants who prepared and served food, which was delivered by lifts to the upper floor, where the close circle of the estate owner's guests gathered. In Russia, the first Hermitage was created in Peterhof by order of Peter I. It was built on the shore of the Gulf of Finland in the western part of the Lower Park. The very idea of its construction came to Peter during his travels through European countries, where he first saw similar buildings. The Peterhof seaside pavilion served as a prototype for all Russian "hermitages" built later.

The construction was entrusted to architect Braunstein. Work began in 1721 and was completed after Peter's death. The small two-story pavilion building rests on a massive stylobate base and is surrounded by a deep, wide moat. The moat was filled with water, and in the first half of the 18th century, a drawbridge was thrown across it. The facades' lightness and airiness are given by huge glass window-doors, thanks to which the palace seems transparent.

The servants were allocated the lower floor with two pantries, a kitchen, and a buffet room, where they prepared and warmed exquisite dishes for feasts organized in the upper hall. The layout of ready dishes and the setting of the hermitage table for 14 people took place in the buffet room, occupying a central position on the first floor of the pavilion. The main exhibit of the buffet room is the lifting mechanism, operated by manual traction. Through an oval opening, the central part of the table was lowered from the second floor into the buffet room, and after setting, it was raised upstairs by the servants. This idea was well liked, and throughout the 18th century, people often "had fun and dined" here.

Guests reached the hall on the second floor using a peculiar elevator – a lifting chair. But in 1797, during Emperor Paul’s stay at the Hermitage, one of the chair’s cables broke. It was ordered to destroy the lifting device and build a staircase, which still exists today.

The decoration of the only hall on the second floor is mesmerizing. From its huge windows facing the four cardinal directions, creating the effect of a panoramic view, there are vistas of the gulf with Kronstadt and the park with alleys stretching into the distance. The walls are covered with a bright carpet of 124 paintings, separated only by gilded frames. The collection of paintings in the first Russian Hermitage consists of works from leading European art schools of the 17th-18th centuries. Mainly, the collection is represented by paintings of masters from the Dutch, Flemish, Italian, German, and French schools. Only one painting is dedicated to a Russian theme. It is the "Battle of Poltava" by an unknown Russian artist.

The impression is also made by the luxuriously set table, on which cake-ships sail with sails, sugar fountain jets soar upwards, and kulebyakas (Russian pies) are appetizingly browned. Catherine I and her daughter Elizabeth Petrovna loved to host evening meals here. Catherine II also often visited the Hermitage, giving her hermitage gatherings an intellectual sparkle. Under her, important state affairs were discussed in the Hermitage, and literary salons were held. For example, one evening in 1796, here, in the presence of the empress, Fonvizin read his comedy "The Brigadier," later called by Pushkin "the bold lord of satire."

During the Great Patriotic War, the Hermitage suffered great damage. After the capture of New Peterhof by German troops on September 23, 1941, the enemy set up an artillery position on the second floor of the Hermitage pavilion to shell Soviet ships in the Gulf of Finland. These events dramatically affected the building's preservation. The Peter the Great lifting table — the Hermitage’s highlight — was irretrievably lost. However, the pavilion was lucky. After the liberation of the Lower Park, "...the palace stood under a roof, its walls were intact except for a hole on the sea side," wrote researcher Fedorova in her memoirs.

In 1948, the head of the City Department of Cultural and Educational Work of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, Rachinsky, compiled a "Report on the Restoration of Suburban Palace Museums of Leningrad," in which he suggested that the Peter the Great Hermitage could be restored as a museum. The "Destruction Act" of 1951 recorded: "The building is preserved, there is a hole in the northern wall. The openings of the main facade are glazed, the rest are boarded up. The moat is cleared of debris. Current roof repairs have been made." Among the building’s damages were torn and burned oak wall cladding, damaged balcony railings, window and door fillings, a destroyed slab in the kitchen, and, of course, the pavilion’s main loss was the lifting table, in place of which a huge hole gaped in the inter-floor ceilings.

Preliminary work on restoring the pavilion and creating an exhibition began in spring 1951. In March 1952, the project assignment was prepared, and in April, the museum restoration began. During the restoration work, brickwork was laid in the artillery hole, facades were plastered, the moat walls and marble floors of the vestibule were repaired, destroyed parts of the fireplace and hearth in the kitchen were restored, oak panels and window and door fillings were recreated, which on the first floor of the building were preserved by 50 percent, and on the second floor by 15-20 percent.

However, a building becomes a museum if it contains a scientifically based exhibition and museum objects. In the buffet room, where before the war the lifting table mechanism was located, an introductory historical exhibition was placed with drawings, engravings, and watercolors from the 18th-19th centuries telling the history of the Hermitage; photographs showed the wartime destruction and the restoration process. In the upper hall, on a model of the table based on surviving photos, 8 place settings of faience dishes and crystal were arranged "in the form they existed before 1941," except for a reduced number of place settings. The painting collection, preserved during evacuation in Sarapul, except for 3-4 paintings not evacuated, returned to its places. By August 1952, the primary tasks of restoring the palace were completed. As a result, the pavilion "Hermitage," damaged during the German occupation, became the first museum in Peterhof to open its doors to visitors after the war in 1952.

Sources:

https://peterhofmuseum.ru/objects/peterhof/pavilion_ermitazh