A House with Chimaeras was designed by the Polish architect Władysław Horodecki in 1901–1902. Horodecki was born in 1863 into a prosperous Polish szlachta family in the Podillia region. After finishing the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1890, he moved to Kyiv, where he lived for almost 30 years. At the time of the building's construction, Horodecki had already established himself as a prominent Kyiv architect, having designed and constructed together with his close friend and partner engineer Anton Strauss many city buildings, from the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Cathedral to the Karaim Kenesa and what today is the National Art Museum of Ukraine. Besides architecture, Horodecki was also interested in big-game hunting, which explains why his building features many animals.