Early in his career, Simon Carl Stanley spent over 20 years in England from where his father had emigrated to Denmark.

In 1746 he returned to Denmark, where he became master sculptor at the Holmen naval base as well as a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1793 he was courting the young Sophie Dorothea Zinn (1774–1851), who recalled the following scene in her memoirs (Grandmamas Bekiendelser, published 1906): “Christmas had bought a house and taken much trouble in furnishing it according to the latest fashion.

When he came to visit us he always brought samples of silk and batiste and asked my mother and me what we found most suiting for curtains, chairs, couches etc.

He was licensed as a ship's captain in 1795 and in 1801 started his own trading firm in a partnership with his brother George Ryan.

[3] In the 19th century, the building was owned by Frederik Løwener, owner of an iron foundry, who rented it out to two of Denmark's leading painters of the time.

Originally, only the central portion of the building stood in full height while the two side wings were of only one storey high until they were extended in 1783.

The main facade is decorated with lesenes and has a Palladian window, a rare sight in Danish architecture and a sign of influence from England.