This one of the most distinctive nineteenth-century Vilnius residences bears witness to the city's development despite the unfavourable times of the Tsarist annexation. Its spacious interiors were used for entertaining and conspiring, as well as displaying a collection of valuable historical memorabilia and natural specimens.

The palace was situated at the end of one of Vilnius' most important arteries, which emerged from Castle Street and, passing German and Vilnius Streets, led to the Trakai Gate. Right next to it, adjacent to the city walls, was a plot of land with an irregular triangular shape, which was originally owned by Vilnius burghers. From 1536, the property was owned by successive representatives of the Polish-Lithuanian elite, beginning with Aleksander Sanguszko (c. 1508-1565). At the end of the 18th century, it was owned by Ignacy Karpi (1780-1809), a wealthy, well-educated and patriotic man. Not being indifferent to social issues, he liberated the peasants, as noted by Adam Mickiewicz in "Pan Tadeusz":

"Only I warn you not to give freedom
Empty and verbal only, as for the Muscovites,
When Mr. Karp the dead landlord liberated the peasants,
And the Muscovite imposed a triple tax on them,
So I advise that the peasants, according to the old custom
to ennoble them and declare that I give them our coat of arms".

By a testamentary bequest of 1808. Ignacy Karp bequeathed the palace to his sister Marianna Plater (1777-1828). However, the palace eventually passed into the hands of his second sister Joanna (1778-1816) married to Michał Tyszkiewicz (1761-1839) from the Łohojsko line. After the death of his parents, the younger of their sons, Jozef (1805-1844), became the owner of the palace in 1839, and in 1843 Jan Konstanty (1801-1862).

Significant changes in the appearance of the palace were made between 1829 and 1834, when it was owned by Jozef Tiškevičius, and when the town gate, abolished in 1803-1804, no longer existed. The dashing owner of Trakai had the old buildings demolished, and in their place, the renowned Vilnius architect Tomas Tiškevičius (1824-1861) built the palace, combining the new edifice with the old outbuildings. In 1857 Nikolai Chagin (1823-1909) added a balcony supported by two atlantes to the façade, creating one of the city's most recognisable 19th century palace façades. Hence it was known as the House under the Snowmen.

The seat of the Tyszkiewicz family, especially after the closure of the Vilnius Academy, played an important role on the cultural and scientific map of Vilnius. It housed the Museum of Antiquities with the collection of the famous historian, archaeologist and sightseeing expert Eustachy Tyszkiewicz (1814-1873). At the end of the 19th century, the palace was sold to the Wendorffs. In the interwar period, it belonged to the Bukowskis, thanks to the entry into the family of Maria Aniela of Wendorff (d. 1935). After World War II, the palace housed a school, and today it is the seat of the Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universitetas faculty of architecture.

The palace preserves fragments of paintings, cookers and partly also door carpentry from the second quarter of the 19th century and later decades, and stucco decoration on the facades from the 1830s and 1850s.