Monplaisir

Monplaisir in the Lower Park of Peterhof is a one-story brick "Dutch house" connected by glazed galleries to the side wings. The central wing is crowned with a high roof with a Dutch-style break and a wooden vase at the top. In the building's State Hall, where alabaster herms in the corners of the pendentives are allegories of the seasons, Empress Catherine I held a reception for the first members of the Academy of Sciences in 1725, and Catherine II held dinners for her close associates. Peter I always stayed here when he came to Peterhof, and he was at Monplaisir for the last time in October 1724.