On her father's death in 1784, she decided to embark on the Grand Tour accompanied by her invalid sister Elizabeth, her younger orphaned cousin, and a female friend from London.

[6] The design of A la Ronde is supposedly based on the Basilica of San Vitale, in Ravenna, which the two cousins had visited on their Grand Tour.

Although only 17 years of age when A la Ronde was built, it is possible that the younger Lowder designed the house based on Jane's ideas.

The stone-clad building consists of 20 rooms, the ground floor ones radiating out from a 35 feet (10.7 m) high hallway, named "The Octagon", and originally connected by sliding doors.

Much of the internal decoration, including original artworks fashioned from shells, feathers, seaweed, and other components, was produced by the two cousins, whose handicraft skills were excellent.

These included the construction of a water tower and laundry room, the installation of a bathroom and central heating, the construction of upstairs bedrooms with dormer windows, the fitting of first-floor windows, a heavy pulley dumb-waiter and speaking tubes, the replacement of the original thatch with roof tiles and the addition of an external catwalk.

[citation needed] The last private owner of the property removed all but one of the very large central heating radiators installed by Reichel, and with the purchase of the property by the National Trust in 1991 came the restoration of the wall coverings to the more authentic colours of the time, as well as creating a virtual tour of the delicate Shell Gallery on the uppermost storey of the house to allow observation without risk of damage.

[citation needed] In May 2024 the house was featured in the BBC series Hidden Treasures of the National Trust, showing the painstaking restoration of the Shell Gallery.