The house was built in the late twenties of the twentieth century for banker Dimitar Ivanov and his wife Nadezhda Stankovic. Inside, the accent falls on the red marble fireplace located in the reception hall. There is a podium for musicians as well as crystal glasses on the interior doors. Several bedrooms, beautiful terraces, a large study room and service rooms. Nothing of the furniture is preserved, but it is known that high-class Sofia citizens at that time preferred furniture from Central and Western Europe.
The exterior is a large front yard facing the street, separated from the sidewalk by a beautiful wrought iron fence. Triple staircase to the entrance of the house, but it is always very impressive that the special portals for carriages and carriages on both sides of the yard. Even today I imagine a cabin with the members of the invited family entering the yard of the house through one portal, the horseshoes and the carriage staying in the space behind the house, specially tailored for that while waiting for the reception to end and go out again from the yard, but through the other portal.
Banker Ivanov’s family lived happily in the house, at least until 1944. After the war the property was nationalized and originally housed the Romanian embassy. Later in the year, the house was a commercial representation of the USSR in Bulgaria, as well as the headquarters of the administration of various communist structures of unclear purpose.
In the 90’s the house was restituted and returned to the heir of the first owner-banker Dimitar Ivanov. Since 2004 the property is the property of the director of Lukoil-Valentin Zlatev, who has not yet shown any relation to this monument of culture. The beautiful house once ruined for decades and is now sadly sad.
What was this for and why a bottom shelf
Most homes built in the early to mid-1900s have a small shelf built into the wall in the kitchen or hallway. If you live in an old house, this may be the case. If you didn’t think much of this, you might have asked yourself why it was there. Yes, there was a reason for putting it there!
A phone niche is what that small shelf is called. People used landlines to talk to each other before cellphones. That seems like a very long time ago now. A lot of homes were built with just one space for the phone. A lot of them had a small shelf or drawer above or below the phone where you could put address or phone books. It seems so old-fashioned to even think about an address book these days!
Most people no longer have landlines and only use cellphones these days. But you can use this phone niche in different ways if your home has one! For decoration, you could buy an old phone and put it there. If you want, you could even use it. It’s big enough to hold books or other home decor items. You could also put a bunch of small plants in pots in the niche. There are many choices, and it’s up to you!
While I love how convenient new homes are, I also love how old homes have little details that make them unique. The house we live in is very old, so old that the idea of a phone niche was a long time away. Does your house have a place for the phone? If so, I’m very envious!
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