The Strigkos Mansion was the permanent residence of the merchant and industrialist Georgios Strigkos, from 1917 to 1941. Strigkos bought the building in May 1917 for 135,000 drachmas. After the Axis bombardment of Piraeus in 1941, the Strigkos family abandoned the city and moved to Athens, never to return. Following the liberation of Greece by the Allies, the Greek Royal Navy turned the mansion to an officers’ club until 1955. On the instigation of the philhellene Octave Merlier the French government purchased the building and offered it to the French Institute until 2001. At the same time the well-known café-patisserie “Myrovolos” occupied the ground floor.