Local pickPhoto by Neoclassicism Enthusiast on Wikimedia Commons
Casa Melik
The oldest surviving house in Bucharest, now the small Theodor Pallady Museum on Spătarului Street.
You are standing in front of Casa Melik, the oldest house still standing in Bucharest, built around 1760. In 1815 a merchant sold it to the Armenian Kevork Nazaretoglu, and it stayed in Armenian families for generations. Look up at the wide eave roof and the glazed veranda above the door. Those are the details Iacob Melik kept when he rebuilt the house in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Melik was an architect, and in 1848 the house sheltered revolutionaries hiding from the authorities. He was exiled, came home nine years later, and found the place in ruins. Inside, the rooms now hold the Theodor Pallady Museum. Pallady was a Romanian painter who spent years in Paris, and the museum keeps his canvases and more than eight hundred drawings, with furniture, textiles, and oriental ceramics given by the collectors Serafina and Gheorghe Răut.
For a long time the house belonged to the Armenian community as a home for poor widows. The museum has been closed for renovation since early 2026, so check before you plan a visit around the interior. Step into the courtyard and look at the house from the garden. You are usually the only person here.
