Once upon a time, there really was a wooden summer house (home) of the architect Andrey Nikolaevich Voronikhin — the author of the designs for the Mining Institute building and the Kazan Cathedral. Andrey Nikiforovich Voronikhin was born on October 17, 1759, in the Urals. His parents were serfs of Count Stroganov.

Voronikhin received his initial education in the Urals at the Stroganov icon-painting workshop, where he ended up at the age of six or seven. His talents did not go unnoticed. Stroganov gave him an excellent education; he studied history, mathematics, and natural sciences alongside Stroganov’s son. Andrey Voronikhin studied extensively in Moscow and abroad but always returned to St. Petersburg to live in the Stroganov Palace, where he resided permanently. It was in the Stroganov Palace that he met the English governess Mary Lond, who became his wife. After their wedding, the young couple moved from the Stroganov Palace to one of the houses near the under-construction Kazan Cathedral. In early October 1804, the City Construction Committee granted the architect permission to build his own summer house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect (plot of house No. 62).

At first, it was a one-story building housing only a spacious living room and several living rooms. There is a legend that the architect built the summer house from wooden scaffolding left over from the construction of the Kazan Cathedral.

Over time, Voronikhin himself reconstructed the building, adding a six-column portico and a terrace. The architect and his family periodically lived in this house until his death in 1814.

In the 1890s, a second floor was added to the building, and a stone staircase was attached. Until 1917, the house housed City Infirmary No. 29 of the commercial partnership. In the 1930s, the portico of the former summer house was dismantled, resulting in something very strange and unsightly.

In the 1940s, the wooden building was converted into apartments, and it remained in this form until the spring of 1980, when it was dismantled and transported to the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery. The press reported that the summer house was sent for restoration, and after restoration and wood reinforcement, it would be reassembled in its original place. In reality, the city simply got rid of the wooden “ugly duckling” so as not to spoil the ceremonial appearance of the northern capital during the 1980 Olympics, considering that the old wooden building spoiled the view of the government route. The press reported that the summer house was sent for restoration, and after restoration and wood reinforcement, it would be reassembled in its original place.

Almost 30 years passed since the start of the “restoration” until in 2009, an almost exact replica of the wooden summer house appeared in its original place.

The fact is that the new three-story, 600-square-meter building is made of brick and reinforced concrete and does not replicate the interiors of Voronikhin’s summer house at all (although this is not surprising). The facade is decorated to look like wood using plaster.

Sources:

https://dzen.ru/media/id/5dea29d4c7e50c00b8dbd208/dacha-voronihina-na-kamennoostrovskom-prospekte-pamiatnik-arhitektury-ili-kommercheskii-novodel-5f74d65a28bb441afd14ed50

https://www.citywalls.ru/house6119.html