Anna Mons house, Federal cultural heritage building in Basmanny District, Moscow, Russia
Anna Mons house is a two-story stone chamber building with salmon-red walls on a white base, its steep green roof tiered and topped by two small red-and-white towers with gold finials. A lower green-roofed porch with a round-arched white entry and columns projects from the front; white-framed rectangular windows with yellow panes line the facade, and a single tiny window sits on the right roof slope.
The stone chambers belonged to the Van der Gults, father and son, who served as physicians to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Tsar Peter I. The building dates from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. A legend, not documented, links it to Anna Mons, Peter I's favourite. It is the only surviving residential house of the German Settlement.
The name "Anna Mons House" comes from a legend, not from ownership: the stone chambers belonged to the Van der Gults, father and son, physicians to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter I. Anna Mons was Peter's favourite. Until the late 1980s white stone lions stood at the building's gate; they were dismantled when a factory block was built and later placed at the entrance of the 18th-century Velikolepov city estate.
The house stands inside the grounds of the former precision instrument factory, which closed in 2004, so access from the street is limited. It is hemmed in on two sides by early 20th-century factory blocks and on the other two by an unfinished 1980s–90s building. Reconstruction and restoration were completed in 2024, and the surrounding territory was revitalised.
Until the late 1980s white stone lions stood at the building's gate. When a factory block was built, the gate was demolished and the lions were taken away; the factory director found them lying in crates in the street and had them transferred to the city's heritage department. They were later placed at the entrance of the 18th-century Velikolepov town estate.
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