Vul. Stefanyka, 11 – residential building

The plot where ​​the house stands was built up in the 18^th century. There was a single-storied brick house there in the 19^th century. In 1872 princess Jadwiga Sapieha, née Zamojska, the wife of Leon Sapieha, the Galician Sejm Marshal, purchased a plot located on Ossolińskich street 10 (conscription number 376 ¼, now Stefanyka street 11) to build a residential house there (DALO 2/2/4446:13). Consequently, the previous one-storied house was dismantled. The project of the house was designed by architect Adolf Kuhn (DALO 2/2/4445, p. II: 43-50), who was also the author of the project of reconstruction of the Sapieha palace situated on vul. Kopernyka, 40a.

The construction was carried out in several stages. In 1873 the front part of the building up to the roof level was built; in 1874 the central part of the building and the roof were constructed. In November of 1874 the Magistrate authorized moving into the premises (DALO 2/2/4446: 25). In 1875 the back part of the building facing Tykha street was constructed (DALO 2/2/4446: 44). Permission to use all the premises was granted not earlier than 1876.

In the autumn of 1874 Jadwiga Sapieha, née Zamojska, expanded her plot by ​​97.53 sq. m. due to purchasing a part of the neighbouring plot number 375 ¼ (№9) from its owner Dr Kornel Szuszkiewicz. In the same year Jadwiga Sapieha was entered in the register as the only owner of the plot number 376 ¼ (DALO 2/2/4446: 26-28). In 1875 the owner asked, through the mediation of Antoni Petrykiewicz, Leon Sapieha’s secretary, to grant her exemption from rental tax for the following 25 years (DALO 2/2/4446: 31).

After the death of Jadwiga Sapieha in 1890 the house became property of her grandson Adam Stanisław who was then a student at the Catholic University of Lille (France) and later became a famous Polish religious and political figure. However, as he spent most of his time abroad, his real estate was managed by his trustees. In particular, in 1909 it was Mr Miłewski and in 1910 Dr Grzegorz Jarosławski: it was they who were addressed by the Magistrate in 1908-1910 when it was necessary to repair the building’s leaking lavatories (DALO 2/2/4446: 52-58).

Since 1911 the third tract’s left wing (facing Tykha street) was rented by the Ossoliński institution represented by Dr Bertold Frucht and Bruno Sass to locate a book bindery there as well as a paper and printed materials storehouse (DALO 2/2/4446: 68). With this in view, the rented premises were reconstructed. Apart from that, lavatories located in the rear part of the building were reconstructed under a project designed by architect Artur Schleyen in 1911-1912 (DALO 2/2/4446: 59, 63).

Later the building became fully owned by the Ossolineum institution. In the interwar period it housed the institution’s administration and the accounting and correspondence department. In the 1920s the building was connected to the sewage network, partially in 1923 and partially in 1929, some work was carried out in the 1930s (DALO 2/2/4446: 73, 75, 80). In 1927 the flat ceilings in some premises were replaced by vaulted ones laid on beams; probably, these vaulted ceilings were of the Klein system (DALO 2/2/4446: 84).

In 1926 a complaint was filed that Stanisław Krzeński, a resident of the house, arranged a wooden closet for storing various trash in the room under the skylight (the building’s central part was covered with a large skylight which has not survived) complicating the other residents’ access to their apartments. The Magistrate forced Krzeński to clear the premises, to whitewash the walls, to clean the glass roof fitting broken glasses and to remove wooden partitions etc., all this at his own expense (DALO 2/2/4445, D.1: 6, 13).

In 1927 Bruno Strzelecki, a non-commissioned officer of the Polish army and one of the tenants, complained that the wooden floor in the corridor of his apartment had rotted away and the ceiling had collapsed in the kitchen due to a water pipe leak (DALO 2/2/4445 , D.1: 19, 25). It may have been a part of this apartment which was reconstructed by architects Alfred and Kazimierz Kamienobrodzki in the same year.

In 1932 three rooms located in the front part of the house to the left of the gate, which were used as offices, were reconstructed under a project designed by engineer Tadeusz Pisiewicz. The Ossoliński institution’s bookstore was arranged there which could be entered through a door in the main façade located right next to the main gate (DALO 2/2/4445, D.1: 40). It consisted of three rooms, one of which was adapted for a reading hall. At the same time a project of a signboard reading "Księgarnia zakładu narodowego im. Ossolińskich" (The bookshop of the Ossoliński people’s institution) was designed; it was to be placed above the bookstore’s three windows.

Basing on address books, it can be said that there were mostly officials, as well as teachers and entrepreneurs among the tenants in the early 20^th century. In addition to apartments and the Ossolineum institution premises, a lot of various newspaper editorial offices, societies, workshops and offices were located in the building for years. In the early 20^th century a legal bureau, a joinery workshop, the editorial office of the Teachers’ Newspaper ("Gazeta Nauczycielska"), the county mutual aid fund for the sick (1902), the Society of Polish Journalists (Tow. dziennikarzy polskich), the Osnova Ruthenian Society, the "Peoples’ Education" ("Oświata Ludowa") society, the editorial office of the Galician Society of Animal Protection Monthly ("Miesięcznik Galic. Tow. Ochrony Zwierząt"), the Dental Institute (Instytut Dentystyczny), the Polish Society for Participants of the 1863-1864 Uprising,  the editorial office and administration of the illustrated social and political weekly Polish Herald ("Herold Polski"), the editorial office of the “Carpathian Rus” newspaper and some others were located there.

The building has been an architectural monument of local significance under number 280 since 1980 (Lviv Regional Executive Committee’s decision №130 dated 26 February 1980). Today it is a residential house; a public organization’s office is located in the front part.  Several rooms in the rear part are occupied by a cloth shop.