Built in 1890 by architects Edmund Burke and Józef Wągrowski, the single-story house on Kawęczyńska Street was part of a residential complex serving the local community.

Standing for over 120 years, the building’s delicate wooden ornamentation survived two world wars and the blight of communism to become one of the district’s unique landmarks.

After WWII, the building was handed over to the local authorities, and in 2015, it was entered in the register of historical monuments as a relic of residential wooden architecture.

But after the last tenant moved out in 2016, the building fell into disrepair. In an effort to save its deteriorating condition, renovation work began in 2021.

This included replacing the building’s foundations and rotting parts, propping up the ceiling, and securing the crumbling chimneys.

Now, the unique monument is to get a second lease of life after Warsaw City Hall received a grant for its restoration.

Posting on its website, City Hall said: “A general renovation will save the only preserved wooden building in Old Praga.

“The monument is one of three that, at the request of the capital city, Warsaw received a subsidy from the Government Program for the Reconstruction of Monuments.”

The other two monuments to benefit from the grant are the city’s 18th-century Elizeum—an underground rotunda known as a ‘house of pleasure’—and the former fortress Fort Bema.

Work on Praga’s wooden house was expected to be completed in 2006.