The so called Masjon house was designed by Hugó Máltás. Three facades facing the street (Jégverem utca 2., Bem rakpart 4., Fő utca 7.) bear the typical Máltás romantic style features.
István Széchenyi invited numerous renowned foreign experts to Hungary at the beginning of the regulation of the Danube, and in 1837 he invited the Dutch ship captain John Andrew Masjon to join the work of the Danube Steamship Company. Masjon, who had also rendered important service during the 1838 floods in Pest, became director of the Old Buda shipyard in 1844 and later took a leading role in the regulation of the Tisza. His wife was the English-born Martha Teasdale, brother of William Teasdale, who came to the capital with Adam Clark to help build the Chain Bridge. In the summer of 1860, Márta Teasdale, who had been widowed in 1858, began to have the building on Jégverem Street built on the basis of plans by Hugó Máltás, and in 1861 it was granted a residence permit. Originally, two people applied for the house, Masjon and the owner of the plot’s immediate neighbour, Ferenc Reitter. It is possible that this is the explanation for the common façade, which conceals two separate tenement houses. In its present, slightly altered form, it is not immediately obvious, but its two equal “main staircases” and two entrances definitely leave their mark.
In 1945, the façade and the slab were so badly damaged that the intact sculptural decorations had to be removed along with the plaster because of their dangerous nature. The fate of the building was then fortunate: in 1949 it was declared a monument, and in 1953, the reconstruction began on the basis of the surviving sections and earlier photographs.
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