Vul. Krakivska, 09 – former Kolomyiska townhouse

2^nd part of the 16^th c. — a Renaissance townhouse was built on the site of previous buildings which were burned.
1712 — the townhouse was reconstructed by Fabian Kolomyiskyi after a fire.
Mid-19^th c. — the townhouse was reconstructed and adapted for a hotel
1890 — the townhouse was reconstructed under a project designed by architect Alfred Kamienobrodzki
1909 — a mezzanine was added to the building's front part under a project designed by Henryk Müller.
1912 — former toilets were adapted for housing while warehouses were arranged in the ground floor premises.
1936 — stone trimmings of window openings, which had been lost, were restored under a project designed by architect Ignacy Wilkoń.
1938 — the building's façade was painted.
1940s — the building was reconstructed under a project designed by Leontiev.
1986 — the paintings were studied; a fragment of the gate's ceiling was uncovered and conserved (artist restorer Nina Prysiazhna).
2006 — the ground floor premises were adapted for the café and confectionery "Freska"; murals were uncovered and restored.

In old times Krakivska street was called Tartar (Tartharorum platea) and led to the Tartar gate, associated with the Tartar community which lived there after the Magdeburg Rights were granted to the city. Historian Ivan Krypiakevych mentions even a mosque where Lviv Muslims prayed. Soon, however, the community declined and lost its position. From 1441 the street was called Krakivska borrowing its name from the road leading to Krakow. At its end, the Krakivska gate stood as a part of the city's northern fortifications. It was then that the street was built by Gothic-style townhouses. Like the whole Gothic Lviv, these houses were destroyed by the great fire of 1527. On Krakivska street Lviv artisans of different professions lived, including painters Martynus and Hanus, as well as some patrician families, in particular, a well-known family of Ubaldini.

The first record of the townhouse number 9 comes from Lviv's oldest surviving town book dated 1382; however, nothing is known about the appearance of the building. Rebuilt after the great Lviv fire, the building was destroyed by a local fire in 1564. A new, Renaissance townhouse was built in its place, whose structure has been preserved till today. From the mid-17^th century the townhouse was known as Kolomyiska, from the family of Kolomyiskyi, who owned it for over 100 years. Fabian Kolomyiskyi rebuilt it "after being burnt by fire in 1712" which was recorded on a miraculously preserved wooden bearing ceiling beam: "Post conflagratam igne lapideam in anno 1712." Perhaps then it was given some Baroque features. In the late 18^th century the townhouse belonged to Stefan Vyshynskyi (Wyszyński), a Ukrainian painter.

In the 19^th century the townhouse was turned into a hotel called "Victoria" and designed for very refined public. It was then that most thorough repairs and reconstructions were made. The hotel owners changed repeatedly, making their larger or smaller adjustments to the building's design. One of them is known due to an inscription reading "Założony 1847" (Founded in 1847) carved on the Empire-style woodwork of internal entrances leading to the courtyard and to the stairs. After this reconstruction the townhouse acquired some features of the Empire style. Perhaps it was then that the typical vaulted ceiling of the gate and a beamed ceiling in the parlour were replaced by flat ceilings and a staircase with a skylight overhead was arranged. The walls and ceilings of the rooms were covered with paintings. In 1886 the townhouse was bought from Maria Kerschbaum by an Austrian named Ludwig Stadtmüller. In 1890 he modernized the hotel, carrying out a reconstruction under a project designed by Alfred Kamienobrodzki, a Lviv architect and builder. It was then that bathrooms were arranged and the fourth floor was built from the rear. Paintings were restored and new ones were made in the added part. The hotel "Victoria" was notable for the fact that it had "rooms for lechery;" the ground floor premises were occupied by a restaurant and wine tavern named "Under the Three Moors" which was rented by Władysław Stepaniuk. In 1909 Stadtmüller had a mezzanine added over the front part of the building under a project designed by Henryk Müller. And in 1912 he sold his property along with the restaurant to Solomon Friedmann.

Friedmann, a Jew, made a quick fortune. Neglecting basic moral principles, eager to make more money, he settled the hotel staff, consisting of Christians, in premises adapted from former toilets. And to drive the restaurant out of the ground floor premises and use them for commerce, he cut off the electricity and gas. From 1924 the building was co-owned by Max Mehr. At that time, all ground floor premises were occupied by shops belonging to three local trading companies, those owned by Bojko, Weiz, and Wolmann. Their products were advertised on signs and in a kind of lockers attached to the main façade. The Magistrate's monument protection service demanded to remove these advertisements, which did not correspond to the building's monument status. Solomon Friedman expressed his opinion about the house, as if realizing that its "reality is old, it has various murals on the walls, and is entered in the archive of the Royal Capital City of Lviv by the Grono Konserwatorskie of Eastern Galicia", but noted that "the advertising placement was allowed by the Magistrate itself." The case of the signs was settled in 1934, when the heirs, Frederika Mehr and Berta Friedman finally took them off and paid a large fine; in 1936, under a project designed by architect Ignacy Wilkoń, stone trimmings of the window openings, which had been lost, were restored. In 1938 the owners, Berta Friedman and Gizela Jupiter, in accordance with the requirements of the monument protection service, had to restore the townhouse's façade. However, the work ended up with painting it. A request to place back the three moors figures, which had once been on the façade, the owners could not honor as they did not find a sculptor who would recreate one of the sculptures, which had been stolen.

The hotel "Victoria" functioned till the occupation of Galicia by the Bolsheviks in 1939. In October of that year a polling station was arranged in the townhouse. The exquisite monument's walls were savagely covered with slogans and appeals, which could be seen in the staircase until recently and also indicated a certain stage in the history of the city.

In Soviet times the townhouse was made residential. It was reconstructed under a project designed by Leontiev: all premises were rearranged for communal flats, concrete ceilings were constructed and paintings were plastered and whitewashed. A shop was arranged in the ground floor premises.

Paintings, covering the walls at all tiers, were found by restorers Kost Prysiazhnyi, Liubart Lishchynskyi, and Myroslava Mayorchuk during some research in 1986. However, then it was possible to uncover and conserve  only one piece on the gate's ceiling. This work was carried out by Nina Prysiazhna. In 2006, during the adaptation of the ground floor for the café and confectionery "Freska," restorers Viktor Hanuliak and Liuba Odrekhivska uncovered and restored some fragments of individual subject and ornamental paintings.