The Morsztyn family built a Baroque palace here after 1661. Augustus II the Strong bought it in 1713, and Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann and Joachim Daniel von Jauch oversaw an expansion completed in 1724, with Louis de Silvestre doing the decoration. Two wings followed in 1748. The merchant Ivan Skwarcov commissioned Adam Idźkowski in 1837 to rebuild it in neoclassical style, and the work ran from 1839 to 1842, adding a Corinthian colonnade.
The Russian army owned it from 1864 to 1915, and the Polish General Staff and Cipher Bureau used it between the wars. German forces blew it up between December 27 and 29, 1944. Only the arcade housing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier survived.
A reconstruction by WXCA is planned for completion in 2030. The cellar foundations were added to the heritage registry in 2007.
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