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This mauseoleum is located next to the Richemont Hotel, the Beau Rivage Hotel and the Hotel de la Paix, three of the city's five stars hotels. It was built in 1877 for an eccentric German nobleman, Charles II d'Este-Guelph, Duke of Brunswick, who came to live in Geneva to flee from political turmoil in Germany. He lived in one of the hotels and played chess with his guests. He once said that, were he not for his enormous wealth, he would already be in an insane asylum.

When he died in 1873 he gave all his money to the city of Geneva in exchange for the construction of this mausoleum, built in 1879 on the model of one in Italy. The city used the money to build the golden gates of Parc des Bastions and the city's opera, the Grand Theatre.