The construction of Palazzo Pfanner dates back to 1660. It was the Moriconi family, members of the Lucca merchant nobility that commissioned its building. Ruined down by bankruptcy the Moriconi family was forced in 1680 to sell the building to the Controni family, silk merchant who had risen to the nobility. The Controni family extended the building: about 1686 they presided over the building of the grand monumental staircase, presumably on the plans of the Lucca architect Domenico Martinelli, active especially in the European capitals of Vienna and Prague; at the beginning of the 18th century they commissioned, in all probability, Filippo Juvarra to upgrade the garden behind; still in the same period they entrusted local 'quadraturisti' painters with decorating the vaults of the staircase and the inside of the aristocratic residence. It is in the residence that the Controni family gave hospitality to Prince Frederick of Denmark  who was making a Grand Tour of Italy. 

The Pfanner family became involved with the century-old history of the Palazzo Pfanner towards the middle of the 19th century. It was indeed Felix Pfanner (1818-1892), a local brewer from Hörbranz (Austria), but from a Bavarian family, who progressively acquired the entire structure after having set up his brewery there in 1846, the first in the Duchy of Lucca and one of the first in Italy. The historic Pfanner Brewery, the pleasant production site and beer garden situated between the garden and the cellars of the Palazzo, closed in 1929.

The Palazzo is still the property of the Pfanner family, who, starting in 1995, has undertaken the demanding work of improvement by initiating restoration and has opened the Palazzo to visitors.

With a proclamation issued in 1835 the Duke of Lucca, Carlo Lodovico di Borbone, decreed that the brewing of beer in the town had to be overseen by a «skilled German manufacturer».

The Austrian brewer Felix Pfanner, who had arrived in Lucca in 1846 from Hörbranz, a town on the shores of Lake Constance, stepped forward in answer to the Duke’s appeal. Once in Lucca Pfanner started making beer in partnership with Gabor Kovacevich. He chose the then-called Palazzo Controni as premises for the beerhouse, renting the garden, cellars and ground floor.

He arranged the machinery and the vats for the fermentation of the barley in the cellars and set up a large pergola in the garden with chairs and tables in cast iron and a marble counter for serving. The Pfanner beerhouse, the first of its kind in the Duchy of Lucca and one of the first in Italy, became a traditional meeting-place for both townspeople and visitors who enjoyed passing the time with a jugful of ale, sitting in beautiful surroundings steeped in an atmosphere from the Belle époque. Thanks to the enormous success of the beerhouse, Felix was able to buy the whole Palazzo which from then on took his name. The Pfanner beerhouse closed down in 1929.

Due to its charming architectural features, Palazzo Pfanner has been chosen several times as the location for the making of films, among which Arrivano i Bersaglieri by Luigi Magni (1980), with Ugo Tognazzi and Pippo Franco, Il Marchese del Grillo by Mario Monicelli (1981), with Alberto Sordi and Paolo Stoppa, and Portrait of a Lady by Jane Campion (1996), starring Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich.