The whimsical mixture of various romantic styles - Northern Art Nouveau and Neo-Russian, the whimsically shaped windows and balconies, the corner tower, the cladding of the walls with natural stone, and the colourful majolica panels, some experts believe to have been designed by Mikhail Vrubel, allowed the author to set against the background of the old Kolomna buildings a sight like a theatre set.

On the façade, the sculptor Konstantin Rausch von Traubenberg carved the Phoenix bird from stone, which seemed to support on its wings the corner bay window of the Tale House.

Ballet master Mikhail Fokin and poet Samuil Marshak, professors of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, composers, actors and directors visited it.

For several days the inhabitants, exhausted by hunger, fought the fire together with the firefighters by extending hoses to the ice hole in the Pryazhka River [Wikidata].

The famous St Petersburg sculptor and creator of decorative dolls, Roman Shustrov, lived in the new building for a considerable part of his life.